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-f '  'fort  nieoiw    ^AmJftrcU^  oj>  Je  M<rrJ>a.tans  .      __' 


'When  you  leave,  please  leave  this  hook 

Because  it  has  heen  said 
"Ever'thing  comes  t'  him  who  waits 

Except  a  loaned  hook." 


Avery  Architectural  and  Fine  Arts  Library 
Gift  of  Seymour  B.  Durst  Old  York  Library 


EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES 

A 

SERIES  OF 

PRACTICAL  AND    POPULAR  DISCOURSES 

DELIVERFD 

IN  THE  BROOKLYN  TABERNACLE 


BY 


T.  DE  WITT    TALMAGE,  D.  D. 


ILLUSTRATED 


"'frhat  church  was  built  as  the   result  of  that   book  you   gave  me  thirty 
years  ago." — See  story,  page  56. 


CHICAGO 

Rhodes,  &  McClure  Publishing  Co. 
1896 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1 89 1 ,  by 

Rhodes  &  McClure  Publishing  Company, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


A II  Rights  Reserved. 


The  reader  will  find  in  this  volume  a  series  of  practi- 
cal and  popular  discourses,  delivered  in  the  Brooklyn 
Tabernacle,  treating  upon  the  evils  of  the  day,  giving  a 
clear  and  full  exposition  of  said  evils,  and  suggesting  the 
remedies  by  which  they   may  be  overcome. 

The  usual  clearness,  fullness  and  earnestness  of  Dr. 
Talmage,  and  the  great  desire  that  all  may  be  saved 
through  the  redemption  of  Christ,  characterize  all  these 
sermons,  and  render  them  decidedly  salutary  and  enter- 
taining. 

Tne  Saviour's  great  willingness  to  receive  back  all,  as 
shown  by  story  and  facts,  is  fully  commensurate  with  the 
great  evils  which  are  so  fully,  earnestly,  and  in- 
offensively handled.  Young  and  old,  and  all  alike,  may 
read  this  book  with  interest  and  profit,  for  the  pathway 
of  safety  and  happiness  is  made  to  shine  most  conspic- 
uously through  all,  and  the  model  home,  with  its  happy 
family  is  in  the  front  ground  of  every  picture. 

J.  B.  McCLURE. 
Chicago.    Jan.    9th,   1896. 


Plague  of  gambling, 17 

Boston    and  Philadelphia, 19 

New    York  City, 19 

The   ,Curse  of    Gambling, 21 

Gambling  Defined, 22 

80,000,000,00  Daily   for  Gambling, 23 

A  Gambling  House  Described, 23 

Hazarding  an   Estate  for  Hell, 24 

Gambling    Kills    Industry, 25 

The  Whole    World  is   Robbed, 26 

Story  of   Mr.   Porter's  Sad  History, 27 

Gambling    Utterly    Ruins, 28 

A  Sad,  Sad  Story,  and  A   Letter, 30 

Vivid    Picture  of    a  Gambler's  Life, 31 

Be  Warned  in   Time, 32 

DRUNKENNESS •  ...  34 

A  World   Wide  Temptation, 34 

The  Nation's  Greatest    Evil, 37 

Hereditary  Appetite, 39 

The  Great  Enemy  of  Labor, 40 

Cannot  Something  be  Done? 41 

The  Wayward  Boy, 42 

The    Waiting  Wives, 43 

(6) 


CONTENTS.  7 

The  Power  of  the  Church 45 

A  Sad  Story  About  Joe, 46 

This  Evil   Will  be  Arrested, 47 

THE  PLAGUE    OF    FROGS 48 

Ancient  Plague  of  Frogs 48 

Modern   Plague  of  Frogs, 49 

The  Amount  of    Bad  Literature, 51 

Laws  Against  Bad   Books, 51 

Enforce    the   Law, 52 

Power  of    a  Bad    Book, 55 

The    Christian  Press, 57 

Story  of    Lady  Stanhope, 61 

AMUSEMENTS 63 

A  Beautiful  World, 63 

Right  and    Wrong  Recreation, 65 

My  First  Experience  in  a  Large  City, 68 

On  the   Down  Grade, 69 

The    Crash, 70 

Amusements  are   Means  to  an  End, 71 

Downfall  of  a  Friend, 72 

At  His  Death-Bed, 73 

At    His  Funeral, 74 

His  Destroyers, 74 

Give  to  Home  your  Best  Affections, 76 

Final  Fall  of  the  Curtain, 77 

THE  PLAGUE    OF    LIES 78 

White  and    Black  Lies, 78 

The  Cities  are   Full  of  Lies, 79 

Agricultural    Lies, 80 

Mercantile    Lies, 82 

The   Worst  Villains   of  the  City, 83 


S  CONTENTS. 

There  is  no  need  of  Falsehood, 84 

Lying   does   not  Pay, 85 

Mechanic's  Lies, 85 

Ecclesiastical  Lies, 87 

Social  Lies, 88 

THE     PLAGUE  OF    INFIDELITY, 92 

Some  Very  Strange  Assertions, 92 

Infidelity's    Proposition, 94 

Stopping   the  Train, 95 

Why  I  Cannot  be  an  Infidel, 96 

The  "Don't  Knows"  of  Infidelity, 97 

Putting  out  All  the  Light  Houses, 98 

The  Awful  Mission  of   Infidelity, 99 

Its  False   Charges, ■ 99 

A  Bible   Picture  Gallery, 102 

A  Call  fcr  the  Witnesses, 104 

Infidelity  Does  no  Good  in  the  World, 105 

Christianity    and  Infidelity  Compared, 106 

Alas,  for  the    Meanness  of  Infidelity, 108 

Thanks,  for  the  Goodness  of  Christianity, 108 

THE  PLAGUE  OF  CRIME, Ill 

Crime  in  our  Cities, 1 1 1 

Society  Threatened  on  all  Sides, 113 

Startling  Figures, 114 

Some  of  the  Sad  Sights  I  have  Seen, 116 

Untrustworthy    Officials, 117 

$50,000,000,00   Squandered, 118 

Shoplifters,  Pickpockets,    etc 119 

The  Do  Nothings 120 

Underground  New  York  and  Brooklyn, 123 

Our  300,000    Honest  Poor, 124 


CONTENTS.  9 

My  Reasons  for  Preaching  this  Sermon, 126 

THE  WAR  OF  CAPITAL  AND  LABOR, 128 

Futile    Remedies, 130 

A  Story  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  the  Miller,  ....  133 

The  Golden    Rule  Remedy, 133 

A  Grateful    Workman, 135 

Golden  Rule  Corporations, 136 

Model  Business  Houses, 137 

A  Good  Story  of    Gen.    Washington, 137 

Supply    and    Demand    a  Fraud, 138 

Reconciliation  is  Promised, 139 

A  Story  of  Henry  Clay, 140 

A  \V  ord  to  Capitalists, ■ 141 

A  Word  to  Laborers, 141 

The  Mutual  Friend  and  Mediator, 142 

THE     HUMDRUM    OF  THE  CHURCHES, 1 44 

Solomon  and  His   Riddles, 145 

The  Visit  of   the   Queen, 146 

The  Humdrum  keeps  People  Away  from  Church ...  147 

How  to    Keep  House   Properly, 148 

Lugubrious  Christianity  very   Harmful, 149 

More  Spice   ye  Teachers, 150 

More  Spice  ye  ^Workers, 151 

More  Spice  ye  Singers, 152 

Wake    up, 153 

True  Religion  is  all  the  Sweet  Spices, 154 

A  Spicy    Story, 156 

TOO  MUCH  THEORY,  NOT  ENOUGH  OF  WORK I  59 

A  Story  of  the  Site  of  Jerusalem, 160 

Good  Work    Kills  Frauds, 161 

Adulterations  in  Food  and  Drugs, 162 


I O  CONTENTS. 

'  'Corners, "  and  How  to  Settle  them, 163 

The  Swindler's  Prayer, 164 

Practical  Religion    Helps  All, 165 

Too  Many  Wives  and  Husbands, 168 

The  Model   Doctor, 169 

Model  Lawyers  and    Merchants, 1 70 

Model  Farmers  and  Mechanics, 171 

A  Story  of  a    Young   Wife, 172 

DEFRAUDERS,    LIBERTINES  AND  ASSASSINS I  74 

The  Romance  of  Fraud, 1 74 

Libertinism, 178 

The  Romance    of  Assassination, 180 

Advice  to  Young  Men, 181 

The    Prodigal    Daughters    Return, 183 

COMMON  CLOAKS  FOR  SIN, I  85 

The  Cloak   of  Good  Manners, 187 

The  Cloak  of  Profession, 188 

Outward  Morality, 1 89 

Christ  the  Atoning  Saviour , 190 

Heaven  Cannot  be  Bought, 191 

Orthodoxy  Cannot   Hide  our  Sins! 192 

Christ's  Righteousness  is  the  True  Cloak  that  Saves 
Us, 194 

THE    SEA-CAPTAIN'S  CALL, 1 96 

How  the  Devil  Cheats  You, 197 

A  Literary  Jonah, 198 

Satan  Sinks  your  Capital, 199 

Sleeping  in  the   Midst  of    Danger, 200 

Strange  Story  of  a  Ship    Full  of  Dead  Men, 200 

Aroused  by  Unexpected    Means, 201 

We  may  Wake  Up   too  Late, 203 


CONTENTS.  I  I 

We  may    Not  Wake    Up  at  All, 204 

Story  of  a  Wrecked  Husband, 207 

THE  BATTLE  OF  CREEDS, 209 

A  Time  of  Church  Quarrels, 209 

Religious  Controversy  is  Damaging, 210 

Inspired  of  Satan, 211 

Satan  Giving   out  His  Commands! 212 

Splitting  up  the  Churches, 213 

And  the  Doctors  all  Fighting, 214 

Take  No  Part  in  the  Controversy, 215 

A  Foggy  Coast  for  Theologues, 216 

Wait  Till  we  Get  our  Throne, 216 

Put  on  the  Gospel  Armor, 217 

What  is  the  Simple  Fact? 218 

Story  of    a  Quilt, ,219 

Go  to  Work  for  God  and  Humanity, 220 

Queen  Victoria's  Visit  to  Scotland, 221 

Oh,  Christ!  Why  Tarriest  Thou? 222 

THE  HAUNTS     OF  VICE, 224 

Criticisms, 226 

Dante's    Inferno, 227 

Bitten  by  a   Serpent, 228 

What  I  Saw  in  the  Costliest  Haunts  of  Vice 229 

Something  that  Amazed  Me, 233 

The  Young    Man's  First  Night, 233 

A  Mothers   Broken  Heart, 234 

You  Killed  Her, 236 

A  Thrilling  Incident, 237 

Fatal  Awakening   of  a  Somnambulist, 238 

THE  LEPERS    OF  HIGH  LIFE, 24O 

Good  Advice  to  Theological  Seminaries, 241 


12  CONTENTS. 

Haunts  of  Vice  Supported  by  Men  of  Wealth,  ....  242 

Sin  Covered  by  Camel's  Hair  Shawls, 243 

A  New  York  Brown  Stone  Hell, 244 

The  Man  and  the  Woman  alike  Guilty, 245 

The  Prodigal  Son  over  Again, 249 

Why  New  York  is  so  Bad, 250 

Police  in  Complicity  with  Crime, 251 

Christians  are  Much  to  Blame, 252 

Volcanoes  Under  our  Cities, 253 

Re-establish  Your  Homes, 254 

THE  GATES    OF  HELL 256 

The  Gambling  House, 256 

Gate  of  Impure  Literature, 259 

Leprous  Book   Sellers, 261 

The  Gate  of  the  Dissolute  Dance, 262 

Indiscreet    Apparel 262 

Gate  of  Alcholic  Beverage, 263 

Few  Dare  Help  these  Fallen  Souls, 265 

The  Sad  Ways  for  Escape, 266 

The  Story  about   "Meg." 270 

WHOM  I  SAW    AND  WHOM  I  MISSED, 273 

Why  I  Explored  the  Slime  Pits, 273 

I   Saw    Bankers,    Merchants,  and    Others,    but  no 

Working  Men  There, 274 

Slim  Chance  for  Young  Men  of  Leisure, 275 

Midnight  in  New  York, 276 

How  I  Felt  While  There, 277 

I  Thought  of  the  Young  Man's  Mother, 278 

Why  I  Did  not  Warn  Him  Then, 279 

Future  Dangers, 281 

Good  Night?  No!  Black  Night, 282 


CONTENTS.  13 

You  may  Become  a  Good  Man — Come  Back,  . .  .  .284 

I  Take  You    by  the  Hand, 285 

A  Pleasing  War    Incident, 286 

UNDER  THE  POLICE   LANTERN, 287 

New  Revelations, 288 

Something  that  Astounded  Me, 290 

5,000,000  Foreign  Population, 291 

Come  to  the  Rescue, 294 

The  Regiment  of  Boot-blacks, 295 

The  Smart  Young  News  Boys, 296 

The  Police  Stratagem  and  the  Preacher, 298 

The  Two  Magic  Lanterns, 300 

The  Christ  of  Mary  Magdalen, 303 

CLUB  HOUSES GOOD  AND  BAD, 305 

Orgin  of    the  Club, 306 

The  Club  House  Described, 308 

The  Bad  Club  House, 309 

How  to  Test  the  Club  House, 311 

Kind  at  the  Club,    but  Ugly  at  Home, 312 

The  Difference, 313 

Club  House  Influence  on  Occupation, 315 

Club  House  Influence  on  Religious  Obligations,  .  . .  316 

She  Will  Never  get  over  It, 317 

A  Strange  but  a  Strong  Hope, 318 

THE  SINS  OF  SUMMER  WATERING  PLACES, 320 

Off  for  a  Vacation, 321 

I  Believe  in  Watering  Places, 322 

The  First  Temptation, 322 

The  Horse  Racing  Business, 324 

Dissipation  and  Dyspepsia, 327 

Temptation  to  Hasty  Marriages, 328 


14  CONTENTS. 

Fops  With  their  "Ahs!  Ohs!  and  He,  Hes!" 329 

On  the   Down  Grade, 333 

THE  WOMAN  OF  PLEASURE, 336 

Social  Position  cannot  Insure  Happiness, 338 

Beauty  cannot  Insure  Happiness, 340 

A  War  Incident, 342 

Flattery  Cannot  give  you  True  Happiness, 344 

Nor  Fashion, 344 

Jesus  Insures  True  Happiness, 346 

KEEPING  BAD  COMPANY, 348 

Shun  the  Skeptic, 350 

Shun  the   Idler, 352 

Shun  the  Perpetual  Pleasure  Seeker, 355 

Story  of  the  Old  Quaker, 358 

THE  TIDES  OF  MUNICIPAL  SINS, 359 

Commercial  Frauds,  . .  . .  : 363 

Effect  of  Fraudulent  Competition, 364 

God  and  the  Oil  Swindler, 365 

How  Honesty  was  Rewarded, 366 

ASTRAY,  BUT  RECOVERED, 371 

The  Text  Takes  us  All  In 371 

An  Illustration  from  the  Shepherd's  Life, 372 

An  Incident   of  an  Actor. 373 

What  is  a  Soul? . .  373 

The  Bombardment  of  Sebastopol, 375 

Christ  Comes  to  the  Fallen, 376 

Christ  pays  the  Debt, 377 

Story  of  the  Worst  Man    in  New  York, 379 

Come  and  be  Saved, 3^i 

REBUILDING  THE  CITY, 3^5 


CONTENTS.  1 5 

Jerusalem    in  Ruins, 385 

Love  of  the  Church, 388 

Exploration  before  Restoration, 389 

Christ's  Way, 390 

The  true  Gospel, 391 

Triumphant  Sadness, 392 

Temptation  to  Give  Up, 393 

A  Touching  Story  of  a  Mother, 394 


WHAT  KEEPS  HIM  AWAY?' 


EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 


PLAGUE    OF  GAMBLING. 


"Let  my  people  go  that  they  may  serve  me,  for  I  will  at  this  time  send 
all  my  plagues."     Ex.  ix,  13,   14. 

ast  winter,  in  the  museum  at  Cairo,  Egypt,  I  saw 
the  mummy,  or  embalmed  body  of  Pharaoh,  the 
^oppressor  of  the  ancient  Israelites.  Visible  are  the 
very  teeth  that  he  gnashed  against  the  Israelitish  brick- 
makers,  the  sockets  of  the  merciless  eyes  with  which  he 
looked  upon  the  overburdened  people  of  God,  the  hair 
that  floated  in  the  breeze  of  the  Red  Sea,  the  very  lips 
with  which  he  commanded  them  to  make  bricks  without 
straw.  Thousands  of  years  after,  when  the  wrappings 
of  the  mummy  were  unrolled,  old  Pharaoh  lifted  up  his 
arm  as  if  in  imploration,  but  his  skinny  bones  cannot 
again  clutch  his  shattered  scepter.  It  was  to  compel 
that  tyrant  to  let  the  oppressed  go  free  that  the  memor- 
able ten  plagues  were  sent. 

Sailing  the  Nile  and  walking  amid  the  ruins  of  the 
Egyptian  cities  I  saw  no  remains  of  those  plagues 
that  smote  the  water  or  the  air.  None  of  the  frogs 
croaked  in  the  one,    none   of   the    locusts  sounded  their 

[17] 


1 8  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

rattle  in  the  other,  and  the  cattle  bore  no  sign  of 
the  murrain;  and  through  the  starry  nights  hovering  about 
the  pyramids  no  destroying  angel  swept  his  wing,  But 
there  are  ten  plagues  still  stinging  and  befouling  and 
cursing  our  cities,  and  like  angels  of  wrath  smiting  not 
only  the  firs  born  but  the  last  born. 

PRIDE  OF  CITY. 

Brooklyn,  New  York  and  Jersey  City,  though  called 
three,  are  practically  one.  The  bridge  already  fastening 
two  of  them  together  will  be  followed  by  other  bridges 
and  by  tunnels  from  both  New  Jersey  and  Long  Island 
shores,  until  what  is  true  now  will,  as  the  years  go  by, 
become  more  emphatically  true.  The  average  condition 
of  public  morals  in  this  cluster  of  cities  is  as  good  if  not 
better  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  world.  Pride  of  city 
is  natural  to  men  in  all  times,  if  they  live  or  have  lived 
in  a  metropolis  noted  for  dignity  or  prowess.  Caesar 
boasted  of  his  native  Rome,  Lycurgus  of  Sparta,  Virgil 
of  Andes,  Demosthenes  of  Athens,  Archimedes  of  Syra- 
cuse, and  Paul  of  Tarsus.  I  should  suspect  a  man  of 
base  heartedness  who  carried  about  with  him  no  feelings 
of  complacency  in  regard  to  the  place  of  his  residence; 
who  gloried  not  in  its  arts  or  arms  or  behavior;  who 
looked  with  no  exultation  upon  its  evidences  of  prosper- 
ity, its  artistic  embellishments  and  its  scientific  attain- 
ments. 

I  have  noticed  that  men  never  like  a  place  where  they 
have  not  behaved  well.  Men  who  have  free  rides  in 
prison  vans  never  like  the  city  that  furnishes  the  vehicle. 
When  I  see  in  history,  Argo,  Rhodes,  Smyrna,  Chios, 
Colophon    and   several   other   cities   claiming  Homer,  I 


PLAGUE  OF   GAMBLING.  1 9 

conclude  that  Homer  behaved  well.  Let  us  not  war 
against  this  pride  of  city,  nor  expect  to  build  up  ourselves 
by  pulling  others  down. 

BOSTON,   AND  PHILADELPHIA. 

Let  Boston  have  its  commons,  its  Faneuil  hall  and  its 
magnificent  scientific  and  educational  institutions.  Let 
Philadelphia  talk  about  its  Mint,  and  Independence  hall, 
and  Girard  college,  and  its  old  families,  as  virtuous  as 
venerable.  When  I  find  a  man  living  in  one  of  those 
places  who  has  nothing  to  say  in  favor  of  them  I  feel 
like  asking  him,  "What  mean  thing  did  you  do  that  you 
do  not  like  your  native  city?"  New  York  is  a  goodly 
city,  and  when  I  say  that,  I  mean  the  region  between 
Spuyten  Duyvil  creek  and  Jamaica  in  one  direction  and 
Newark  flats  in  the  other  direction.  That  which  tends 
to  elevate  a  part  elevates  all.  That  which  blasts  part 
blasts  all.  Sin  is  a  giant,  and  he  comes  to  the  Hudson 
or  Connecticut  river  and  passes  it  as  easily  as  we  step 
across  a  figure  in  the  carpet.  The  blessing  of  God  is  an 
angel,  and  when  it  stretches  out  its  two  wings  one  of  them 
hovers  over  that  and  the  other  over  this. 

THE  GREAT  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK. 

In  infancy  the  great  metropolis  was  laid  down  by  the 
banks  of  the  Hudson.  Its  infancy  was  as  feeble  as  that 
of  Moses  sleeping  in  the  bulrushes  by  the  Nile;  and,  like 
Miriam,  there  our  fathers  stood  and  watched  it.  The 
royal  spirit  of  American  commerce  came  down  to  the 
water  to  bathe,  and  there  she  found  it.  She  took  it  in 
her  arms,  and  the  child  grew  and  waked  strong,  and  the 
ships  of  foreign  lands  brought  gold  and  spices  to  its  feet, 
and  stretching  itself  up  into  the  porportions  of  a  metrop- 


20  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

olis,  it  has  looked  up  to  the  mountains  and  off  upon  the 
sea — the  mightiest  of  the  energies  of  American  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  character  of  a  founder  of  a  city  will  be  seen  for 
many  years  in  its  inhabitants.  Romulus  impressed  his 
life  upon  Rome.  The  Pilgrims  relaxed  not  their  hold 
upon  the  cities  of  New  England.  William  Penn  has  left 
Philadelphia  an  inheritance  of  integrity  and  fair  dealing, 
and  on  any  day  in  that  city  you  may  see  in  the  manners, 
customs  and  principles  of  its  people  his  tastes,  his  coat, 
his  hat,  his  wife's  bonnet  and  his  plain  meeting  house. 
The  Hollanders  still  wield  an  influence  over  New   York. 

Grand  old  New  York!  What  southern  thoroughfare 
was  ever  smitten  by  pestilence,  when  our  physicians  did 
not  throw  themselves  upon  the  sacrifice!  What  distant 
land  has  cried  out  in  the  agony  of  famine,  and  our  ships 
have  not  put  out  with  breadstuffs!  What  street  of 
Damascus  or  Beyrout  or  Madras  that  has  not  heard  the 
step  of  our  missionaries!  What  struggle  for  national  life 
in  which  our  citizens  have  not  poured  their  blood  into  the 
trenches?  What  gallery  of  exquisite  art  in  which  our 
painters  have  not  hung  their  pictures!  What  depart- 
ment of  literature  or  science  to  which  our  scholars  have 
not  contributed!  I  need  not  speak  of  our  public  schools, 
where  the  cordwainer  and  milkman  and  glassblowers 
stand  by  the  side  of  the  flattered  sons  of  merchant  princes; 
or  of  the  insane  asylums  on  all  these  islands  where  they 
who  went  cutting  themselves,  among  the  tombs,  now  sit, 
clothed  and  in  their  right  minds;  or  of  the  Magdalen 
asylums,  where  the  lost  one  of  the  street  comes  to  bathe 
the  Saviour's  feet  with  her  tears,  and  wipe  them  with  the 


PLAGUE  OF  GAMBLIMG.  2  I 

hair  of  her  head — confiding  in  the  pardon  of  him  who 
said:  "Let  him  who  is  without  sin  cast  the  first  stone  at 
her."  I  need  not  speak  of  the  institutions  for  the  blind, 
the  lame,  the  deaf,  and  the  dumb,  for  the  incurables,  the 
widow,  the  orphan,  and  the  outcast;  or  of  the  thousand 
armed  machinery  that  sends  streaming  down  from  the 
reservoirs  the  clear,  bright,  sparkling,  God  given  water 
that  rushes  through  our  aqueducts,  and  dashes  out  of 
the  hydrants,  and  tosses  up  in  our  fountains,  and  hisses 
in  our  steam  engines,  and  showers  out  the  conflagration, 
and  sprinkles  from  the  baptismal  font  of  our  churches;  and 
with  silver  note,  and  golden  sparkle,  and  crystalline 
chime,  says  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  population, 
in  the  authentic  words  of  him  who  said:  "I  will;  be 
thou  clean!" 

THE  CURSE  OF  GAMBLING. 

All  this  I  promise  in  opening  this  course  of  sermons  on 
the  ten  plagues  of  these  three  cities,  lest  some  stupid 
man  might  say  I  am  deprecating  the  place  of  my  resi- 
dence. I  speak  to  you  to-day  concerning  the  plague  of 
gambling.  Every  man  and  woman  in  this  house  ought 
to  be  interested  in  this  theme. 

Some  years  ago,  when  an  association  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  gambling  was  organized,  an  agent  of  the  associa- 
tion came  to  a  prominent  citizen  and  asked  him  to  patro- 
nize the  society.  He  said,  "No,  I  can  have  no  interest 
in  such  an  organization.  I  am  in  no  wise  affected  by 
that  evil."  At  that  very  time  his  son,  who  was  his 
partner  in  business,  was  one  of  the  heaviest  players  in 
Hearne's  famous  gambling  establishment.  Another  re- 
fused his   patronage    on  the  same   ground,    not  knowing 


22  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

that  his  first  book-keeper,  though  receiving  a  salary  of 
only  a  thousand  dollars,  was  losing  from  fifty  to  one 
hundred  dollars  per  night.  The  president  of  a  railroad 
company  refused  to  patronize  the  institution,  saying, 
"That  society  is  good  for  the  defense  of  merchants,  but 
we  railroad  people  are  not  injured  by  this  evil;"  not 
knowing  that,  at  the  very  time,  two  of  his  conductors 
were  spending  three  nights  of  each  week  at  faro  tables  in 
New  York.  Directly  or  indirectly,  this  evil  strikes  at  the 
whole  world. 

GAMBLING  DEFINED. 

Gambling  is  the  risking  of  something  more  or  less 
valuable  in  the  hope  of  winning  more  than  you  hazard. 
The  instruments  of  gaming  may  differ  but  the  principle  is 
the  same.  The  shuffling  and  dealing  cards,  however  full 
of  temptation,  is  not  gambling,  unless  stakes  are  put  up; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  gambling  may  be  carried  on 
without  cards  or  dice,  or  billiards,  or  ten-pin  alley.  The 
man  who  bets  on  horses,  on  elections,  on  battles — the 
man  who  deals  in  '  'fancy"  stocks,  or  conducts  a  business 
which  hazards  extra  capital,  or  goes  into  transactions 
without  foundation,  but  dependent  upon  what  men  call 
4  'luck, "  is  a  gambler.  Whatever  you  expect  to  get  from 
your  neighbor  without  offering  an  equivalent  in  money  or 
time  or  skill  is  either  the  product  of  theft  or  gambling. 
Lottery  tickets  and  lottery  policies  come  into  the  same 
category.  Fairs  for  the  founding  of  hospitals,  schools 
and  churches,  conducted  on  the  raffling  system,  come 
under  the  same  denomination.  Do  not,  therefore,  asso- 
ciate gambling  necessarily  with  any  instrument,  or  game, 
or  time  or  place,   or  think   the    principle  depends   upon 


PLAGUE  OF  GAMBLING.  23 

whether  you  play  for  a  glass  of  wine  or  one  hundred 
shares  of  railroad  stock.  Whether  you  patronize  "auc- 
tion pools,"  "French  mutuals, "  or  "book-making," 
whether  you  employ  faro  or  billiards,  rondo  and  keno, 
cards  or  bagatelle,  the  very  idea  of  the  thing  is  dishonest, 
for  it  professes  to  bestow  upon  you  a  good  for  which  you 
give  no  equivalent. 

$80,000,000,00    DAILY  FOR   GAMBLING. 

It  is  estimated  that  every  day  in  Christendom  eighty 
million  dollars  pass  from  hand  to  hand  through  gambling 
practices,  and  every  year  in  Christendom  one  hundred 
and  twenty-three  billion  one  hundred  million  dollars 
change  hands  in  that  way.  There  are  in  this  cluster  of 
cities  about  eight  hundred  confessed  gambling  establish- 
ments; how  many  of  them  do  you  suppose  profess  to  be 
honest?  Ten.  These  ten  profess  to  be  honest  because 
they  are  merely  the  ante-chamber  to  the  seven  hundred 
and  ninety  that  are  acknowledged  fraudulent.  There  are 
first  class  gambling  establishments.  You  go  up  the 
marble  stairs.  You  ring  the  bell.  The  liveried  servant 
introduces  you.  The  walls  are  lavender  tinted.  The 
mantels  are  of  Vermont  marble.  The  pictures  are 
"Jephthah's  Daughter"  and  Dore's  "Dante's  and  Virgil's 
Frozen  Region  of  Hell" — a  most  appropriate  selection, 
this  last,  for  the  place.  There  is  the  roulette  table,  the 
finest,  the  costliest,  most  exquisite  piece  of  furniture  in 
the  United  States.  There  is  the  banqueting  room,  where 
free  of  charge  to  the  guests,  you  may  find  the  plate  and 
viands  and  wines  and  cigars  sumptuous   beyond  parallel. 

Then  you  come  to  the  second  class  gambling  establish- 
ment.    To  it  you  are  introduced  by  a  card  through  some 


24  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

"roper-in."  Having  entered,  you  must  eifeher  gamble  or 
fight.  Sanded  cards,  dice  loaded  with  quicksilver,  poor 
drinks,  will  soon  help  you  to  get  rid  of  all  your  money 
to  a  tune  in  short  meter  with  staccato  passages.  You 
wanted  to  see.  You  saw.  The  low  villians  of  that 
place  watch  you  as  you  come  in.  Does  not  the  panther, 
squat  in  the  grass,  know  a  calf  when  he  sees  it?  Wrangle 
not  for  your  rights  in  that  place,  or  your  body  will  be 
thrown  bloody  into  the  street,  or  dead  into  the  East  river. 
You  go  along  a  little  further  and  find  the  policy  establsh- 
ment.  In  that  place  you  bet  on  numbers.  Betting  on 
two  numbers  is  called  a  ' 'saddle,"  betting  on  three  num- 
bers is  called  a  "gig,"  betting  on  four  numbers  is  called 
a  "horse,"  and  there  are  thousands  of  our  young  men 
leaping  into  that  "saddle"  and  mounting  that  "gig"  and 
behind  that  "horse"  riding  to  perdition.  There  is  always 
one  kind  of  sign  on  the  door — "Exchange."  a  most  ap- 
propriate title  for  the  door,  for  there,  in  that  room,  a 
man  exchanges  health,  peace  and  heaven  for  loss  of 
health,  loss  of  home,  loss  of  family,  loss  of  immortal  soul. 
Exchange  sure  enough  and  infinite  enough. 

Men  wishing  to  gamble  will  find  places  just  suited  to 
their  capacity,  not  only  in  underground  oyster  cellar,  or 
at  the  table  back  of  the  curtain,  covered  with  greasy 
cards,  or  in  the  steamboat  smoking  cabin,  where  the 
bloated  wretch  with  rings  in  his  ears  instead  of  his  nose, 
deals  the  pack,  and  winks  in  the  unsuspecting  traveler 
— providing  free  drinks  all  around — but  in  gilded  parlors 
and  amid  gorgeous  surroundings. 

HAZARDING  AN  ESTATE  FOR  HELL. 

A  young  man  having  suddenly  heired  a  large  property, 


PLAGUE  OF   GAMBLING.  2$ 

sits  at  the  hazard  table  and  takes  up  in  a  dice  box  the 
estate  won  by  a  father's  lifetime  sweat,  and  shakes  it, 
and  tosses  it  away.  Intemperance  soon  stigmatizes  its 
victim,  kicking  him  out,  a  slavering  fool,  into  the  ditch, 
or  sending  him,  with  the  drunkard's  hiccough,  staggering 
up  the  street  where  his  family  lives.  But  gambling  does 
not  in  that  way  expose  it  victims.  The  gambler  may  be 
eaten-  up  by  the  gambler's  passion,  yet  you  have  only  dis 
covered  it  by  the  greed  in  his  eyes,  the  hardness  of  his 
features,  the  nervous  restlessness,  the  threadbare  coat 
and  his  embarrassed  business.  Yet  he  is  on  the  road  to 
hell,  and  no  preacher's  voice,  or  startling  warning,  or 
wife's  entreaty,  can  make  him  stay  for  a  moment  his  head- 
long career.  The  infernal  spell  is  on  him;  a  giant  is 
aroused  within;  and  though  you  bind  him  with  cables, 
they  would  part  like  thread;  and  though  you  fasten  him 
seven  times  around  with  chains,  they  would  snap  like 
rusted  wire;  and  though  you  piled  up  in  his  path  heaven 
high  Bibles,  tracts  and  sermons,  and  on  the  top  should 
set  the  cross  of  the  son  of  God,  over  them  all  the  gamb- 
ler would  leap,  like  a  roe  over  the  rocks,  on  his  way  to 
perdition. 

GAMBLING  KILLS  INDUSTRY. 

Again,  this  sin  works  ruin  by  killing  industry.  A  man 
used  to  reaping  scores  or  hundreds  or  thousands  of  dollars 
from  the  gaming  table  will  not  be  content  with  slow 
work.  He  will  say,  '  'What  is  the  use  of  trying  to  make 
these  fifty  dollars  in  my  store  when  I  can  get  five  times 
that  in  half  an  hour  down  at  'Billy's?'  You  never  knew 
a  confirmed  gambler  who  was  industrious.  The  men 
given  to  this  vice  spend  their  time,  not  actively   engaged 


26  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

in  the  game,  in  idleness,  intoxication  or  sleep,  or  in 
corrupting  new  victims.  This  sin  has  dulled  the  car- 
penter's saw  and  cut  the  band  of  the  factory  wheel,  sunk 
the  cargo,  broken  the  teeth  of  the  farmer's  harrow  and 
sent  a  strange  lightning  to  shatter  the  battery  of  the 
philosopher.  The  very  first  idea  in  gaming  is  at  war 
with  all  the  industries  of  society. 

THE    WHOLE    WORLD  IS    ROBBED. 

The  crime  is  getting  its.  lever  under  many  a  mercantile 
house  in  our  great  cities,  and  before  long  down  will  come 
the  great  establishment,  crushing  reputation,  home, 
comfort,  and  immortal  souls.  How  it  diverts  and  sinks 
capital  may  be  inferred  from  some  authentic  statement 
before  us.  The  ten  gaming  houses  that  once  were  au- 
thorized in  Paris  passed  through  the  bank,  yearly,  three 
hundred  and  twenty-five  millions  of  francs.  Where  does 
all  the  money  come  from?  The  whole  world  is  robbed! 
What  is  most  sad,  there  are  no  consolations  for  the  loss 
and  suffering  entailed  by  gaming.  If  men  fail  in  lawful 
business,  God  pities  and  society  commiserates;  hut  where 
in  the  Bible  or  in  society  is  there  any  consolation  for 
the  gambler?  From  what  tree  of  the  forest  oozes  there  a 
balm  that  can  soothe  the  gamester's  heart?  In  that  bottle 
where  God  keeps  the  tears  of  his  children  are  there  any 
tears  of  the  gambler?  Do  the  winds  that  come  to  kiss 
the  faded  cheek  of  sickness,  and  to  cool  the  heated  brow 
of  the  laborer,  whisper  hope  and  cheer  to  the  emaciated 
victim  of  the  game  of  hazard?  When  an  honest  man  is 
in  trouble  he  has  sympathy.  "Poor  fellow!"  they  say. 
But  do    gamblers    come  to    weep  at  the    agony   of  the 


PLAGUE    OF  GAMBLING.  27 

gambler?     Ay,  there  is  no  sympathy  for  him  in  sorrows! 

MR.    PORTER'S    SAD  HISTORY. 

In  Northumberland  was  one  of  the  finest  estates  in 
England.  Mr.  Porter  owned  it,  and  in  a  year  gambled 
it  all  away.  Having  lost  the  last  acre  of  the  estate,  he 
came  down  from  the  saloon,  and  got  his  carriage, 
went  back,  staked  his  horses  and  carriage  and  town 
house,  and  played.  He  threw  and  lost,  He  started 
home,  and  in  a  side  alley  met  a  friend  from  whom  he 
borrowed  ten  guineas;  went  back  to  the  saloon  and  before 
a  great  while  had  won  twenty  thousand  pounds.  He 
died  at  last  a  beggar  in  St.  Giles.  How  many  gamblers 
felt  sorry  for  Mr.  Porter?  Who  consoled  him  on  the  loss 
of  his  estate?  What  gambler  subscribed  to  put  a  stone 
over  the  poor  man's  grave?     Not  one! 

GAMBLING  THE  CAUSE   OF  OTHER    CRIMES. 

Furthermore,  this  sin  is  the  source  of  uncounted  dis- 
honesties. The  game  of  hazard  itself  is  often  a  game  of 
cheat.  How  many  tricks  and  deceptions  in  the  dealing 
of  the  cards!  The  opponents  hand  is  ofttimes  found  out 
by  fraud.  Cards  are  marked  so  that  they  may  be  desig- 
nated from  the  back.  Expert  gamesters  have  their  ac- 
complices, and  one  wink  may  decide  the  game.  The 
d'ce  have  been  found  loaded  with  platina,  so  that  '  'doub- 
lets" come  up  every  time.  These  dice  are  introduced  by 
gamblers,  unobserved  by  honest  men  who  have  come  into 
the  play;  and  this  accounts  for  the  fact  that  ninety-nine 
out  of  a  hundred  who  gamble,  however  wealthy  they 
began,  at  the  end  are  found  to  be  poor,  miserable,  ragged 
wretches,  that  would  not  now  be  allowed  to  sit  on  the 
doorstep    of   the    house    that    they    once  owned.      In    a 


2  8  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

gambling  house  in  San  Francisco  a  young  man  having 
just  come  from  the  mines  deposited  a  large  sum  upon 
the  ace,  and  won  twenty-two  thousand  dollars.  But  the 
tide  turns.  Intense  excitement  comes  upon  the  counten- 
ances of  all.  Slowly  the  cards  went  forth.  Every  eye  is 
fixed.  Not  a  sound  is  heard  until  the  ace  is  revealed 
favorable  to  the  bank.  There  are  shouts  of  "Foul!' 
"Foul!"  but  the  keepers  of  the  table  produce  their  pistols, 
and  the  uproar  is  silenced  and  the  bank  has  won  ninety- 
five  thousand  dollars.  Do  you  call  this  a  game  of  chance? 
There  is  no  chance  about  it. 

IT    UTTERLY    RUINS. 

But  these  dishonesties  in  the  carrying  on  of  the  game 
are  nothing  when  compared  with  the  frauds  which  are 
committed  in  order  to  get  money  to  go  on  with  the  ne- 
farious work.  Gambling  with  its  greedy  hand  has  snatch- 
ed away  the  widow's  mite  and  the  portion  of  the  orphans? 
has  sold  the  daughter's  virtue  to  get  the  means  to  con- 
tinue the  game;  has  written  the  counterfeit  signature, 
emptied  the  banker's  money  vault  and  wielded  the 
assassin's  dagger.  There  is  no  depths  of  meanness  to 
which  it  will  not  stoop.  There  is  no  cruelty  at  which  it 
is  appalled.  There  is  no  warning  of  God  that  it  will  not 
dare.  Merciless,  unappeasable,  fiercer  and  wilder,  it 
blinds,  it  hardens,  it  rends,  it  blasts,  it  crushes,  it  damns. 
It  has  peopled  our  prisons  and  lunatic  asylums.  How 
many  railroad  agents  and  cashiers  and  trustees  of  funds 
it  has  driven  to  disgrace,  incarceration  and  suicide!  Wit- 
ness years  ago  a  cashier  of  a  railroad  who  stole  one 
hundred  and  three  thousand  dollars  to  carry  on  his  gam- 
ing  practices.      Witness   forty    thousand    dollars   stolen 


PLAGUE    OF  GAMBLING.  20, 

from  a  Brooklyn  bank  within  the  memory  of  many  of 
you,  and  the  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  dollars 
taken  from  a  Wall  street  insurance  company  for  the  same 
purpose!  These  are  only  illustrations  on  a  large  scale  of 
the  robberies  every  day  committed  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  out  the  designs  of  gamblers.  Hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars  every  year  leak  out  without  observation 
from  the  merchant's  till  into  the  gambling  hell. 

A  man  in  London  keeping  one  of  these  gambling 
houses  blasted  that  he  had  ruined  a  nobleman  a  day;  but 
if  all  the  saloons  of  this  land  were  to  speak  out  they 
might  utter  a  more  infamous  boast,  for  they  have  de- 
stroyed a  thousand  noble  men  a  year. 

IT  DESTROYS     DOMESTIC  HAPPINESS. 

Notice  also  the  effect  of  this  crime  upon  domestic 
happiness.  It  has  sent  its  ruthless  plowshare  through 
hundreds  of  families,  until  the  wife  sat  in  rags,  and  the 
daughters  were  disgraced,  and  the  sons  g'rew  up  to  the 
same  infamous  practices  or  took  a  short  cut  to  destruc- 
tion across  the  murderer's  scaffold.  Home  has  lost  all 
charms  for  the  gambler.  How  tame  are  the  children's 
caresses  and  a  wife's  devotion  to  the  gambler!  How 
drearily  the  fire  burns  on  the  domestic  hearth!  There 
must  be  louder  laughter,  and  something  to  win  and  some- 
thing to  lose;  an  excitement  to  drive  the  heart  faster  and 
fillip  the  blood  and  fire  the  imagination.  No  home, 
however  bright,  can  keep  back  the  gamester.  The  sweet 
call  of  love  bounds  back  from  his  iron  soul,  and  all  en- 
dearments are  consumed  in  the  flame  of  his  passion. 
The  family  Bible  will  go  after  all  other  treasures  are  lost, 
and  if  his  crown  in    heaven  were    put  into    his    hand   he 


30  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

would  cry:    "Here  goes  one  more    game,  my    boys!     On 
this  one  throw  I  stake  my  crown  of  heaven.'' 

A  SAD,      SAD  STORY  AND  LETTER. 

A  young  man  in  London,  on  coming  of  age,  received 
a  fortune  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  dollars, 
and.  through  gambling,  in  three  years  was  thrown  on 
his  mother  for  support.  An  only  son  went  to  a  southern 
city;  he  was  rich,  intellectual  and  elegant  in  manners. 
His  parents  gave  him  on  his  departure  from  home  their 
last  blessing.  The  sharpers  got  hold  of  him.  They 
flattered  him.  They  lured  him  to  the  gaming  table,  and 
let  him  win  almost  every  time  for  a  good  while,  and 
patted  him  on  the  back  and  said,  "First  rate  player.' 
But  fully  in  their  grasp  they  fleeced  him,  and  his  thirty 
thousand  dollars  were  lost.  Last  of  all  he  put  up  his 
watch  and  lost  that.  Then  he  began  to  think  of  his 
home  and  his  old  father  and  mother,  and  wrote  thus: 

"My  Beloved  Parents — You  will  doubtless  feel  a  mo- 
mentary joy  at  the  reception  of  this  letter  from  the  child 
of  your  bosom,  on  whom  you  have  lavished  all  the  favors 
of  your  declining  years.  But  should  a  feeling  of  joy  for 
a  moment  spring  up  in  your  hearts  when  you  should  have 
received  this  from  me  cherish  it  not.  I  have  fallen  deep 
— never  to  rise.  Those  gray  hairs  that  I  should  have 
honored  and  protected  I  shall  bring  down  with  sorrow  to 
the  grave.  I  will  not  curse  my  destroyer,  but  oh?  may 
God  avenge  the  wrongs  and  impositions  practiced  upon 
the  unwary  in  a  way  that  shall  best  please  Him.  This, 
my  dear  parents,  is  the  last  letter  you  will  ever  receive 
from  me.  I  humbly  pray  your  forgiveness.  It  is  my 
dying  prayer.      Long  before  you  have  received  this  letter 


PLAGUE   OF  GAMBLING.  31 

from  me  the  cold  grave  will  have  closed  upon  me  for- 
ever. Life  to  me  is  insupportable.  I  cannot,  nay,  I 
will  not,  suffer  the  shame  of  having  ruined  you.  Forget 
and  forgive  is  the  dying  prayer  of  your  unfortunate  son." 
The  old  father  came  to  the  postoffice,  got  the  letter 
and  fell  to  the  floor.  They  thought  he  was  dead  at  first; 
but  they  brushed  back  the  white  hair  from  his  brow  and 
fanned  him.  He  had  only  fainted.  I  wish  he  had  been 
dead,  for  what  is  life  worth  to  a  father  after  his  son  is 
destroyed?  When  things  go  wrong  at  the  gambling  table 
they  shout  "Foul!  foul!"  Over  all  the  gaming  tables  of 
the  world  I  cry  out:    "Foul!  foul!   Infinitely  foul." 

A  VIVID   PICTURE  OF  THE  GAMBLER'S  LIFE. 

Shall  I  sketch  the  history  of  the  gambler?  Lured  by 
bad  company  he  finds  his  way  into  a  place  where  honest* 
men  ought  never  to  go.  He  sits  down  to  his  first  game, 
but  only  for  pastime  and  the  desire  of  being  thought  soci- 
able. The  players  deal  out  the  cards.  They  uncon- 
sciously play  into  Satan's  hands,  who  takes  all  the  tricks 
and  both  the  players'  souls  for  trumps — he  being  a  sharper 
at  any  game.  A  slight  stake  is  put  up  just  to  add  in- 
terest to  the  play.  Game  after  game  is  played.  Larger 
stakes  and  still  larger.  They  begin  to  move  nervously 
on  their  chairs.  Their  brows  lower  and  eyes  flash,  until 
now  they  who  win,  and  they  who  lose,  fired  alike  with 
passion,  sit  with  set  jaws,  and  compressed  lips,  and 
clinched  fists  and  eyes  like  fire  balls  that  seem  starting 
from  their  sockets,  to  see  the  final  turn  before  it  comes; 
if  losing,  pale  with  envy  and  tremulous  with  unuttered 
oaths  cast  back  red  hot  upon  the  heart — or,  winning, 
with  hysteric  laugh — "Ha!  ha!     I    have  it!     I   have   it! 


32  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

A  few  years  have  passed  and  he  is  only  the  wreck  of  a 
man.  Seating  himself  at  the  game  ere  he  throws  the 
first  card,  he  stakes  the  last  relic  of  his  wife,  and  the 
marriage  ring  which  sealed  the  solemn  vows  between 
them.  The  game  is  lost,  and  staggering  back  in  ex- 
haustion he  dreams.  The  bright  hours  of  the  past  mock 
his  agony,  and  in  his  dreams  fiends  with  eyes  of  Are  and 
tongue  of  flames  circle  about  him  with  joined  hands  to 
dance  and  sing  their  orgies  with  hellish  chorus,  chanting 
"Hail!  brother!"  kissing  his  clammy  forehead  until  their 
loathsome  locks,  flowing  with  serpents,  crawl  into  his 
bosom  and  sink  their  sharp  fangs  and  suck  up  his  life's 
blood,  and  coiling  around  his  heart  pinch  it  with  chills 
and  shudders  unutterable. 

BE  WARNED  IN  TIME. 

Take  warning!  You  are  no  stronger  than  tens  of 
thousands  who  have  by  this  practice  been  overthrown. 
No  young  man  in  our  cities  can  escape  being  tempted. 
Beware  of  the  first  beginnings!  This  road  is  a  down 
grade,  and  every  instant  increases  the  momentum. 
Launch  not  upon  this  treacherous  sea.  Split  hulks  strew 
the  beach.  Everlasting  storms  howl  up  and  down  toss- 
ing unwary  crafts  into  the  Hellgate.  I  speak  of  what  I 
have  seen  with  my  own  eyes.  I  have  looked  off  into  the 
abyss,  and  I  have  seen  the  foaming,  and  the  hissing,  and 
the  whirling  of  the  horrid  deep  in  which  the  mangled  vic- 
tims writhed,  one  upon  another,  and  struggled,  strangled, 
blasphemed  and  died — the  death  stare  of  eternal  despair 
upon  their  countenances  as  th^  waters  gurgled  over  them. 

To  a  gambler's  deathbed  there  comes  no  hope.  He 
will  probably  die  alone.      His  former  associates  come  not 


PLAGUE   OF  GAMBLING.  33 

nigh  his  dwelling.  When  the  hour  comes  his  miserable 
soul  will  go  out  of  that  miserable  life  into  a  miserable 
eternity.  As  his  poor  remains  pass  the  house  where  he 
was  ruined,  old  companions  may  look  out  a  moment  and 
say,  "There  goes  the  old  carcass — dead  at  last,"  but  they 
will  not  get  up  from  the  table.  Let  him  down  now  into 
his  grave.  Plant  no  tree  to  cast  its  shade  there,  for  the 
long,  deep,  eternal  gloom  that  settles  there  is  shadow 
enough.  Plant  no  "forget-me-nots"  or  eglantines  around 
the  spot,  for  flowers  were  not  made  to  grow  on  such  a 
blasted  heath.  Visit  it  not  in  the  sunshine,  for  that 
would  be  mockery,  but  in  the  dismal  night,  when  no  stars 
are  out  and  the  spirits  of  darknessxome  down  horsed  on 
the  wind,  then  visit  the  grave  of  the  gambler! 


DRUNKENNESS. 


"Noah  planted  a  vineyard;  and  he  drank  of  the  wine  and  was  drunken." 
Genesis  ix,  20,  21. 

his  Noah  did  the  best  and  the  worst  thing  for  the 
worM.  He  built  an  ark  against  the  deluge  of 
water,  but  introduced  a  deluge  against  which  the 
human  race  has  ever  since  been  trying  to  build  an  ark — 
the  deluge  of  drunkenness.  In  my  text  we  hear  his 
staggering  steps.  Shem  and  Japheth  tried  to  cover  up 
the  disgrace,  but  there  the  is,  drunk  on  wine  at  a  time  in 
the  history  of  the  world,  when,  to  say  the  least,  there 
was  no  lack  of  water.  Inebriation,  having  entered  the 
world,  has  not  retreated.  Abigail,  the  fair  and  heroic- 
wife,  who  saved  the  flocks  of  Nabal,  her  husband,  from 
confiscation  by  invaders,  goes  home  at  night  and  finds 
him  so  intoxicated  she  cannot  tell  him  the  story  of  his 
narrow  escape.  Uriah  came  to  see  David,  and  David 
got  him  drunk  and  paved  the  way  for  the  despoliation  of 
a  house  hold.  Even  the  church  bishops  needed  to  be 
charged  to  be  sober  and  not  given  to  too  much  wine, 
and  so  familiar  were  people  of  Bible  times  with  the  stag- 
gering and  falling  motion  of  the  inebriate  that,  Isaiah, 
when  he  comes  to  describe  the  final  dislocation  of  worlds, 
says,  "The  earth  shall  reel  to  and  fro  like  a  drunkard." 

A  WORLD  WIDE  TEMPTATION. 

Ever  since  apples  and  grapes  and  wheat  grew  the  world 
has  been  tempted  to    unhealthful    stimulants.      But    the 

[34] 


INTEMPERANCE. 


DRUNKENNESS.  35 

intoxicants  of  the  olden  time  were  an  innocent  beverage, 
a  harmless  orangeade,  a  quiet  syrup,  a  peaceful  soda  water 
as  compared  with  the  liquids  of  modern  inebriation,  into 
which  a  madness  and  a  fury,  and  a  gloom,  and  a  fire, 
and  a  suicide,  and  a  retribution  have  mixed  and  mingled. 
Fermentation  was  always  known,  but  it  was  not  until 
a  thousand  years  after  Christ  that  distillation  was  in- 
vented. While  we  must  confess  that  some  of  the  ancient 
arts  have  been  lost,  the  Christian  era  is  superior  to  all 
others  in  the  bad  eminence  of  whisky  and  rum  and  gin. 
The  modern  drunk  is  a  hundred  fold  worse  than  the 
ancient  drunk.  Noah  in  his  intoxication  became  im- 
becile, but  the  victims  of  modern  alcoholism  have  to 
struggle  with  whole  menageries  of  wild  beasts,  and  jungles 
of  hissing  serpents,  and  perditions  of  blaspheming 
demons. 

An  arch  fiend  arrived  in  our  world  and  he  built  an  in- 
visible caldron  of  temptation.  He  built  that  caldron 
strong  and  stout  for  all  ages  and  all  nations.  First  he 
squeezed  into  the  caldron  the  juices  of  the  forbidden  fruit 
of  Paradise.  Then  he  gathered  for  it  a  distillation  from 
the  harvest  fields  and  the  orchards  of  the  hemispheres. 
Then  he  poured  into  this  caldron  capsicum,  and  copperas 
and  logwood  and  deadly  nightshade  and  assault  and  bat-" 
tery  and  vitriol  and  opium  and  rum  and  murder  and  sul- 
phuric acid  and  theft  and  potash  and  cochineal  and  red 
carrots  and  poverty  and  death  and  hops.  But  it  was  a 
dry  compound,  and  it  must  be  moistened,  and  it  must  be 
liquefied,  and  so  the  arch  fiend  pours  into  that  caldron 
the  tears  of  centuries  of  orphanage  and  widowhood,  and 
he  poured  in  the  blood  of  twenty  thousand  assassinations. 


36  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

And  then  the  arch  fiend  took  a  shovel  that  he  had 
brought  up  from  the  furnaces  beneath,  and  he  put  that 
shovel  into  this  great  caldron  and  began  to  stir,  and  the 
caldron  began  to  heave  and  rock  and  boil  and  sputter  and 
hiss  and  smoke,  and  the  nations  gathered  around  it  with 
cups  and  tankards  and  demijohns  and  kegs,  and  there 
was  enough  for  all,  and  the  arch  fiend  cried:  "Aha! 
champion  fiend  am  I!  Who  has  done  more  than  I  have 
for  coffins  and  graveyards  and  prisons  and  insane  asylums 
and  the  populating  of  the  lost  world?  And  when  this 
caldron  is  emptied  I'll  fill  it  again  and  I'll  stir  it  again, 
and  it  will  smoke  again,  and  that  smoke  will  join  another 
smoke,  the  smoke  of  torment  that  ascendeth  for  ever  and 
ever.  I  drove  fifty  ships  on  the  rocks  of  Newfoundland, 
and  the  Skeeries,  and  the  Goodwins.  I  have  ruined 
more  senators  than  gathered  this  winter  in  the  national 
councils.  I  have  ruined  more  lords  than  are  now  gather- 
ed in  the  house  of  peers.  The  cup  out  of  which  I  ordi- 
narly  drink  is  a  bleached  human  skull,  and  the  upholstery 
of  my  palace  is  so  rich  a  crimson,  because  it  is  dyed  in 
human  gore,  and  the  mosaic  of  my  floors  is  made  up  of 
the  bones  of  children  dashed  to  death  by  drunken  parents, 
and  my  favorite  music — sweeter  than  Te  Deuin  or 
triumphal  march — my  favorite  music  is  the  cry  of  daugh- 
ters turned  out  at  midnight  on  the  street  because  father 
has  come  home  from  the  carousal,  and  the  seven  hundred 
voice  shriek  of  the  sinking  steamer,  because  the  captain 
was  not  himself  when  he  put  the  ship  on  the  wrong 
course.  Champion  fiend  am  I!  I  have  kindled  more 
fires,  I  have  wrung  out  more  agonies,  I  have  stretched 
out  more   midnight   shadows,    I  have  opened  more    Gol- 


DRUNKENNESS.  37 

gothas,  I  have  rolled  more  Juggernauts,  I  have  damned 
more  souls  than  any  other  emissary  of  diabolism.  Cham- 
pion fiend  am  I!" 

THE  NATION'S    GREATEST  EVIL. 

Drunkenness  is  the  greatest  evil  of  this  nation,  and  it 
takes  no  logical  process  to  prove  to  this  audience  that  a 
drunken  nation  cannot  long  be  a  free  nation.  I  call 
your  attention  to  the  fact  that  drunkenness  is  not  sub- 
siding; certainly  that  it  is  not  at  a  standstill,  but  that  it 
is  on  an  onward  march,  and  it  is  a  double  quick.  There 
is  more  rum  swallowed  in  this  country,  and  of  a  worse 
kind,  than  was  ever  swallowed  since  the  first  distillery 
began  its  work  of  death.  Where  there  was  one  drunken 
home  there  are  ten  drunken  homes.  Where  there  was 
one  drunkard's  grave  there  are  twenty  drunkard's  graves. 
It  is  on  the  increase.  Talk  about  crooked  whisky — by 
which  men  mean  the  whisky  that  does  not  pay  the  tax  to 
government — I  tell  you  all  strong  drink  is  crooked. 
Crooked  Otard,  crooked  Cognac,  crooked  schnapps, 
crooked  beers,  crooked  wine,  crooked  whisky — because 
it  makes  a  man's  path  crooked,  and  his  life  crooked,  and 
his  death  crooked,  and  his  eternity  crooked. 

If  I  could  gather  all  the  armies  of  the  dead  drunkards 
and  have  them  come  to  resurrection,  and  then  add  to 
that  host  all  the  armies  of  living  drunkards,  five  and  ten 
abreast,  and  then  if  I  could  have  you  mount  a  horse 
and  ride  along  that  line  for  review,  you  would  ride  that 
horse  until  he  dropped  from  exhaustion,  and  you  would 
mount  another  horse  and  ride  until  he  fell  from  exhaus- 
tion, and  ycu  would  take  another  and  another,  and  you 
would  ride  along  hour    after    hour  and  day  after   day. 


38  EVILS  OF    THE   CITIES. 

Great  host,  in  regiments,  in  brigades.  Great  armies  of 
them.  And  then  if  you  had  voice  stentorian  enough  to 
make  them  all  hear,  and  you  could  give  the  command, 
' 'Forward,  march!"  their  first  tramp  would  make  the 
earth  tremble.  I  do  not  care  which  way  you  look  in  the 
community  to-day,  the  evil  is  increasing. 

Is  drunkenness  a  state  or  national  evil?  Does  it  be- 
long to  the  north,  or  does  it  belong  to  the  south?  Does 
it  belong  to  the  east,  or  does  it  belong  to  the  west? 
Ah!  there  is  not  an  American  river  into  which  its  tears 
have  not  fallen  and  into  which  its  suicides  have  not 
plunged.  What  ruined  that  southern  plantation? — 
every  field  a  fortune,  the  proprietor  and  his  family  once 
the  most  affluent  supporters  of  summer  watering  places. 
What  threw  that  New  England  farm  into  decay  and  turn- 
ed the  roseate  cheeks  that  bloomed  at  the  foot  of  the 
Green  Mountains  into  the  pallor  of  despair?  What  has 
smitten  every  street  of  every  village,  town  and  city  of 
this  continent  with  a  moral  pestilence?     Strong  drink. 

MAINE  AND  GEORGIA. 

To  prove  that  this  is  a  national  evil  I  call  up  two 
states  in  opposite  directions — Maine  and  Georgia.  Let 
them  testify  in  regard  to  this.  State  of  Maine  says,  "It 
is  so  great  an  evil  up  here  we  have  anathematized  it  as  a 
state."  State  of  Georgia  says,  "It  is  so  great  an  evil 
down  here  that  ninety  counties  of  this  state  have  made 
the  sale  of  intoxicating  drink  a  criminality."  So  the 
word  comes  up  from  all  parts  of  the  land.  Either  drunk- 
enness will  be  destroyed  in  this  country  or  the  American 
government  will  be  destroyed.        Drunkenness  and  free 


DRUNKENNESS.  39 

institutions  are  coming    into  a  terrible    death   grapple. 

HEREDITARY   APPETITE. 

I  call  attention  to  the  facts  that  there  are  thousands  of 
people  born  with  a  thirst  for  strong  drinks — a  fact  too 
often  ignored.  Along  some  ancestral  lines  there  runs 
the  river  of  temptation.  There  are  children  whose 
swaddling  clothes  are  torn  off  the  shrould  of  death.  Many 
a  father  has  made  a  will  of  this  sort:  4Tn  the  name  of 
God,  amen.  I  bequeath  to  my  children  my  houses  and 
lands  and  estates;  share  and  share  shall  they  alike. 
Hereto  I  affix  my  hand  and  seal  in  the  presence  of  wit- 
nesses." And  yet  perhaps  that  very  man  has  made  an- 
other will  that  the  people  have  never  read,  and  that  has 
not  been  proved  in  the  courts.  That  will  put  in  writing 
would  read  something  like  this:  ''In  the  name  of  disease 
and  appetite  and  death,  amen.  I  bequeath  to  my 
children  my  evil  habits,  my  tankards  shall  be  theirs,  my 
wine  cup  shall  be  theirs,  my  destroyed  reputation  shall 
be  theirs.  Share  and  share  alike  shall  they  in  the  infamy. 
Hereto  I  affix  my  hand  and  seal  in  the  presence  of  all  the 
applauding  harpies  of  hell." 

From  the  multitude  of  those  who  have  the  evil  habit 
born  with  them  this  army  is  being  augumented.  And  I 
am  sorry  to  say  that  a  great  many  of  the  drug  stores  are 
abetting  this  evil,  and  alcohol  is  sold  under  the  name  of 
bitters.  It  is  bitters  for  this  and  bitters  for  that  and 
bitters  for  some  other  thing,  and  good  men  deceived,  not 
knowing  there  is  any  thrn.ldom  of  alcoholism  coming 
from  that  source,  are  going  down,  and  some  day  a  man 
sits  with  the  bottle  of  black  bitters  on  his  table,  and  the 
cork  fiies  out,  and  after  it  flies   a   fiend  and  clutches  the 


40  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

man  by  his  throat  and  says:  "Aha!  I  have  been  after 
you  for  ten  years.  I  have  got  you  now.  Down  with 
you!  down  with  you!"  Bitters!  Ah!  yes.  They  make  a 
man's  family  bitter,  and  his  home  bitter,  and  his  disposi- 
tion bitter,  and  his  death  bitter,  and  his  hell  bitter.  Bit- 
ters!    A  vast  army,  all  the  time  increasing. 

It  seems  to  me  it  is  about  time  for  the  17,000,000 
professors  of  religion  in  America  to  take  sides.  It  is  going 
to  be  an  out  and  out  battle  with  drunkenness  and  sobriety, 
between  heaven  and  hell,  between  God  and  the  devil 
Take  sides  before  there  is  any  further  national  decadence 
take  sides  before  your  sons  are  sacrificed  and  the  new 
home  of  your  daughter  goes  down  under  the  alcoholism 
of  an  imbruted  husband.  Take  sides  while  your  voice, 
your  pen,  your  prayer,  your  vote  may  have  an  influence 
in  arresting  the  despoliation  of  this  nation.  If  the  17,- 
000,000  professors  of  religion  should  take  sides  on  this 
subject  it  woutd  not  be  very  long  before  the  destiny  of 
this  nation  would  be  decided  in  the  right  direction. 

THE  GREAT  ENEMY  OF  LABOR. 

Gather  up  the  money  that  the  working  classes  have  spent 
for  rum  during  the  last  thirty  years,  and  I  will  build  for 
every  workingman  a  house,  and  lay  out  for  him  a  garden} 
and  clothe  his  sons  in  broadcloth  and  his  daughters  in 
silks,  and  stand  at  his  front  door  a  prancing  span  of 
sorrels  or  bays,  and  secure  him  a  policy  of  life  insurance 
so  that  the  present  home  may  be  well  maintained  after 
he  is  dead.  The  most  persistent,  most  overpowering 
enemy  of  the  working  classes  is  intoxicating  liquor.  It 
is  the  anarchist  of  the  centuries,  and  has  boycotted  and 
<s  now  boycotting  the  body  and  mind  and  soul  of  Ameri- 


DRUNKENNESS.  4 1 

can  labor.  It  annually  swindles  industry  out  of  a  large 
percentage  of  its  earnings.  It  holds  out  its  blasting  solic- 
itations to  the  mechanic  or  operative  on  his  way  to  work, 
and  at  the  noon  spell,  and  on  his  way  home  at  eventide. 
On  Saturday  when  the  wages  are  paid,  it  snatches  a 
large  part  of  the  money  that  might  come  to  the  family 
and  sacrifices  it  among  the  saloon  keepers.  Stand  the 
saloons  of  this  country  side  by  side,  and  it  is  carefully 
estimated  that  they  would  reach  from  New  York  to 
Chicago. 

This  evil  is  pouring  its  vitriolic  and  damnable  liquors 
down  the  throats  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  laborers, 
and  while  the  ordinary  strikes  are  ruinous  both  to  em- 
ployers and  employes,  I  proclaim  a  universal  strike  against 
strong  drink,  which  strike,  if  kept  up,  will  be  the  relief 
of  the  working  classes  and  the  salvation  of  the  nation. 
I  will  undertake  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  healthy  laboref 
in  the  United  States  who,  within  the  next  twenty  years, 
if  he  will  refuse  all  intoxicating  beverages  and  be  saving, 
may  not  become  a  capitalist  on  a  small  scale. 

CANNOT  SOMETHING  BE  DONE? 

Oh,  how  many  are  waiting  to  see  if  something  cannot 
be  done  for  the  stopping  of  intemperance!  Thousands 
of  drunkards  waiting  who  cannot  go  ten  minutes  in  any 
direction  without  having  the  temptation  glaring  before 
their  eyes  or  appealing  to  their  nostrils,  they  fighting 
against  it  with  enfeebled  will  and  diseased  appetite,  con- 
quering, then  surrendering,  conquering  again  and  sur- 
rendering again,  and  crying:  "How  long,  O  Lord!  how 
long  before  these  infamous  solicitations  shall  be  gone?" 
And  how  many  mothers  are  waiting  to  see  if  this  national 


42  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

curse  cannot  lift?  Oh,  is  that  the  boy  who  has  the  honest 
breath  who  comes  home  with  breath  vitiated  or  dis- 
guised? What  a  change!  How  quickly  those  habits  of 
early  coming  home  have  been  exchanged  for  the  rattling 
of  the  night  key  in  the  door  long  after  the  last  watchman 
has  gone  by  and  tried  to  see  that  every  thing  was  closed 
up  for  the  night! 

THE   WAYWARD  BOY. 

Oh!  what  a  change  for  that  young  man,  who  we  had 
hoped  would  do  something  in  merchandise  or  in  artisan- 
ship  or  in  a  profession  that  would  do  honor  to  the  family 
name,  long  after  mothers  wrinkled  hands  are  folded 
from  the  last  toil!  All  that  exchanged  for  startled  look 
when  the  door  bell  rings,  lest  something  has  happened; 
and  the  wish  that  the  scarlet  fever  twenty  years  ago  had 
been  fatal,  for  then  he  would  have  gone  directly  to  the 
bosom  of  his  Saviour.  But  alas!  poor  old  soul,  she  has 
lived  to  experience  what  Solomon  said,  "A  foolish  son  is 
a  heaviness  to  his  mother." 

Oh!  what  a  funeral  it  will  be  when  that  boy  is  brought 
home  dead!  And  how  mother  will  sit  there  and  say:  ''Is 
this  my  boy  that  I  used  to  fondle,  and  that  I  walked  the 
floor  with  in  the  nights  when  he  was  sick?  Is  this  the 
boy  that  I  held  to  the  baptismal  font  for  baptism?  Is  this 
the  boy  for  whom  I  toiled  until  the  blood  burst  from  the 
tips  of  my  fingers,  that  he  might  have  a  good  start  and  a 
good  home?  Lord,  why  hast  thou  let  me  live  to  see  this? 
Can  it  be  that  these  swollen  hands  are  the  ones  that  used 
to  wander  over  my  face  when  rocking  him  to  sleep?  Can 
it  be  that  this  swollen  brow  is  that  I  once  so  rapturously 
kissed?       Poor  bo\!  how  tired  he  does  look.        I  wonder 


DRUNKENNESS.  43 

who  struck  him  that  blow  across  the  temples?  I  wonder 
if  he  uttered  a  dying  prayer?  Wake  up,  my  son;  don't 
you  hear  me?  Wake  up!  Oh!  he  can't  hear  me!  Dead! 
dead!  dead!  'Oh,  Absalom,  my  son.  my  son,  would  God 
that  I  had  died  for  thee,  oh,  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son!" 

WAITING  WIVES. 

I  am  not  much  of  a  mathematician  and  I  cannot  esti- 
timate  it,  but  is  there  anyone  here  quick  enough  at 
figures  to  estimate  how  many  mothers  there  are  waiting 
for  something  to  be  done?  Ay,  there  are  many  wives 
waiting  for  domestic  rescue.  He  promised  something 
different  from  that  when  after  the  long  acquaintance  and 
the  careful  scrutiny  of  character,  the  band  and  the  heart 
were  offered  and  accepted.  What  a  hell  on  earth  a 
woman  lives  in  who  has  a  drunken  husband!  O  death, 
how  lovely  thou  art  to  her,  and  how  soft  and  warm  thy 
skeleton  hand!  The  sepulcher  at  midnight  in  winter  is  a 
king's  drawing  room  compared  with  that  woman's  home. 
It  is  not  so  much  the  blow  on  the  head  that  hurts  as  the 
blow  on  the  heart: 

The  rum  fiend  came  to  the  door  of  that  beautiful  home, 
and  opened  the  door  and  stood  there  and  said:  'T  curse 
this  dwelling  with  an  unrelenting  curse.  I  curse  that 
father  into  a  manaic,  I  curse  that  mother  into  a  pauper. 
I  curse  those  sons  into  vagabonds.  I  curse  those  daugh- 
ters into  profligacy.  Cursed  be  bread  tray  and  cradle. 
Cursed  be  couch  and  chair,  and  family  Bible  with  record 
of  marriages  and  births  and  deaths.  Curse  upon  curse." 
Oh,  how  many  wives  are  there  waiting  to  see  if  something 
cannot  be  done  to  shake  these  frosts  of  the  second  death 
off  the  orange  blossoms!       Yea,  God  is  waiting,  the  God 


44  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

who  works  through  human  instrumentalities,  waiting  to 
see  whether  this  nation  is  going  to  overthrow  this  evil, 
and  if  it  refuse  to  do  so  God  will  wipe  out  the  nation  as 
he  did  Phoenicia,  as  he  did  Rome,  as  he  did  Thebes,  as  he 
did  Babylon. 

Ay,  he  is  waiting  to  see  what  the  church  of  God  will 
do.  If  the  church  does  not  do  its  work,  then  he  will 
wipe  it  out  as  he  did  the  church  of  Ephesus,  church  of 
Thyatira,  church  of  Sardis.  The  Protestant  and  Roman 
Catholic  churches  to-day  stand  side  by  side,  with  an  im- 
potent look,  gazing  on  this  evil,  which  costs  this  country 
more  than  a  billion  dollars  a  year  to  take  care  of  the 
800,000  paupers,  and  the  315,000  criminals,  and  the 
30,000  idiots,  and  to  bury  the  75,000  drunkards.  Pro- 
tagoras boasted  that  out  of  the  sixty  years  of  his  life  forty 
years  he  had  spent  in  ruining  youths;  but  this  evil  may 
make  the  more  infamous  boast  that  all  its  life  it  has  been 
ruining  the  bodies,  minds  and  souls  of  the  human  race. 

THE  POLITICIANS  ARE  DOING  NOTHING. 

Put  on  your  spectacles  and  take  a  candle  and  examine 
the  platforms  of  the  two  leading  political  parties  of  this 
country,  and  see  what  they  are  doing  .  for  the  arrest  of 
this  evil,  and  for  the  overthrow  of  this  abomination. 
Resolutions — oh!  yes,  resolutions  about  Mormonism!  It 
is  safe  to  attack  that  organized  nastiness  two  thousand 
miles  away.  But  not  one  resolution  against  drunken- 
ness, which  would  turn  this  entire  nation  into  one  bestial 
Salt  Lake  City.  Resolutions  against  political  corruption, 
but  not  one  word  about  drunkenness,  which  would  rot 
this  nation  from  scalp  to  heel.  Resolutions  about  pro- 
tection against  competition  with    foreign    industries,  but 


DRUNKENNESS.  45 

not  one  word  about  protection  of  family  and  church  and 
nation  against  the  scalding,  blastings,  all  consuming, 
damning  tariff  of  strong  drink  put  upon  every  financial, 
individual,  spiritual,  moral,  national  interest. 

THE    POWER  OF  THE    CHURCH. 

I  look  in  another  direction.  The  Church  of  God  is  the 
grandest  and  most  glorious  institution  on  earth.  What 
has  it  in  solid  phalanx  accomplished  for  the  overthrow  of 
drunkenness?  Have  its  forces  ever  been  marshaled?  No, 
not  in  this  direction.  Not  long  ago  a  great  ecclesiastical 
court  assembled  in  New  York,  and  resolutions  arrainging 
strong  drink  were  offered,  and  clergymen  with  strong 
drink  on  their  tables  and  strong  drink  in  their  cellars  de- 
feated the  resolutions  by  threatening  speeches.  They 
could  not  bear  to  give  up  their  own  lusts. 

I  tell  this  audience  what  many  of  you  may  never  have 
thought  of,  that  to-day — not  in  the  millennium,  but  to- 
day— the  church  holds  the  balance  of  power  in  America; 
and  if  Christian  people — the  men  and  the  women  who 
profess  to  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  to  love  purity 
and  to  be  the  sworn  enemies  of  all  uncleanness  and  de- 
bauchery and  sin — if  all  such  would  march  side  by  side 
and  shoulder  to  shoulder,  this  evil  would  soon  be  over- 
thrown. Think  of  three  hundred  thousand  churches  and 
Sunday  schools  in  Christendom  marching  shoulder  to 
shoulder!  How  very  short  a  time  it  would  take  them  to 
put  down  this  evil,  if  all  the  churches  of  God,  transatlan- 
tic and  cisatlantic,  were  armed  on  this  subject! 
Young  men  of  America,  pass  over  into  the  army  of  tee- 
totalism.  Whisky,  good  to  preserve  corpses,  ought  never 
to  turn  you  into  a  corpse.        Tens  of  thousands  of  young; 


46  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES, 

men  have  been  dragged  out  of  respectability,  and  out  of 
purity,  and  out  of  good  character,  and  into  darkness  by 
this  infernal  stuff  called  strong  drink.  Do  not  touch  it! 
Do  not  touch  it! 

A  SAD    STORY  ABOUT   ''JOE." 

In  the  front  door  of  our  church  in  Brooklyn,  a  few 
summers  ago,  this  scene  occurred:  Sabbath  morning  a 
young  man  was  entering  for  divine  worship.  A  friend 
passing  along  the  street  said,  "Joe,  come  along  with  me; 
I  am  going  down  to  Coney  Island  and  we'll  have  a  gay 
Sunday.,'  "No,"  replied  Joe;  "I  have  started  to  go  here 
to  church,  and  I  am  going  to  attend  service  here."  "Oh, 
Joe,"  his  friend  said,  "you  can  goto  church  any  time! 
The  day  is  bright,  and  we'll  go  to  Coney  Island,  and  we'll 
have  a  splendid  time."  The  temptation  was  too  strong, 
and  the  twain  went  to  the  beach,  spent  the  day  in  drunk- 
enness and  riot.  The  evening  train  started  up  from  Brigh- 
ton. The  young  men  were  on  it.  Joe,  in  his  intoxica- 
tion, when  the  train  was  in  full  speed,  tried  to  pass 
around  from  one  seat  to  another  and  fell  and  was  crushed. 

Under  the  lantern  as  Joe  lay  bleeding  his  life  away  on 
the  grass,  he  said  .to  his  comrade:  "John,  that  was  a 
bad  business,  you  taking  me  away  from  church;  it  was 
a  very  bad  business.  You  ought  not  to  have  done  that, 
John.  I  want  you  to  tell  the  boys  to-morrow  when  you 
see  them  that  rum  and  Sabbath  breaking  did  this  for  me. 
And  John,  while  you  are  telling  them,  I  will  be  in  hell, 
and  it  will  be  your  fault."  Is  it  not  time  for  me  to  pull 
out  from  the  great  organ  of  God's  word,  with  many  banks 
of  keys,  the  tremolo  stop?  "Look  not  upon  the  wine 
when  it  is  red,  when  it  moveth  itself  aright  in  the  cup,  for 


DRUNKENNESS.  47 

at  last  it  biteth  like  a  serpent  and  stingeth  like  an  adder. 

THIS  EVIL  WILL  BE  ARRESTED. 

But  this  evil  will  be  arrested.  Bluchercame  up  just 
before  night  and  saved  the  day  at  Waterloo.  At  4  o'clock, 
in  the  afternoon  it  looked  very  badly  for  the  English. 
Generals  Ponsonby  and  Pickton  fallen.  Sabers  broken, 
flags  surrendered,  Scots  Grays  annihilated.  Only  forty- 
two  men  left  out  of  the  German  brigade.  The  English 
army  falling  back  and  falling  back.  Napoleon  rubbed 
his  hands  together  and  said;  "Aha!  aha!  we"ll  teach 
that  little  Englishman  a  lesson.  Ninety  chances  out  of 
a  hundred  are  in  our  favor.  Magnificent!  magnificent!" 
even  sent  messages  to  Paris  to  say   he  had  won   the  day. 

But  before  sundown  Blucher  came  up,  and  he  who  had 
been  the  conqueror  of  Austerlitz  became  the  victim  of 
Waterloo.  The  name  which  had  shaken  all  Europe  and 
filled  even  America  with  apprehension,  that  name  went 
down,  and  Napoleon,  muddy  and  hatless,  and  crazed  with 
his  disasters,  was  found  feeling  for  the  stirrup  of  a  horse, 
that  he  might  mount  and  resume  the  conflict. 

Well,  my  friends,  alcoholism  is  imperial,  and  it  is  a 
conqueror,  and  there  are  good  people  who  say  the  night 
of  national  overthrow  is  coming,  and  that  it  is  almost 
night.  But  before  sundown  the  Conqueror  of  earth  and 
heaven  will  ride  in  on  a  white  horse,  and  alcoholism, 
which  has  had  its  Austerlitz  of  triumph,  shall  have  its 
Waterloo  of  defeat.  Alcoholism  having  lost  its  crown, 
the  grizzly  and  cruel  breaker  of  human  hearts,  crazed  with 
the  disaster,  will  be  found  feeling  in  vain  for  the  stirrup 
on  which  to  remount  its  foaming  charger.  "So,  Q  Lord, 
Let  thine  enemies  perish." 


PLAGUE  OF   BAD  BOOKS. 


"And  the  frogs  came  up  and  covered  the  land  of  Egypt.  And  the  ma- 
gicians did  so  with  their  enchantments,  and  brought  frogs  upon  the  land 
of  Egypt."     Ex.  viii,  6,   7. 

mere  is  almost  a  universal  aversion  to  frogs,  and 
yet  with  the  Egyptians  they  were  honored,  they 
were  sacred,  and  they  were  objects  of  worship 
while  alive,  and  after  death  they  were  embalmed,  and 
to-day  their  remains  may  be  found  among  the  sepulchres 
of  Thebes. 

THE  ANCIENT  PLAGUE  OF  FROGS. 

These  creatures,  so  attractive  once  to  the  Egyptians, 
at  divine  behest  became  obnoxious  and  loathsome,  and 
they  went  croaking  and  hopping  and  leaping  into  the 
palace  of  the  king,"  and  into  the  bread  trays  and  the 
couches  of  the  people,  and  even  the  ovens,  which  are 
now  uplifted  above  the  earth  and  on  the  side  of  chimneys, 
but  then  were  small  holes  in  the  earth  with  sunken  pot- 
tery, were  rilled  with  frogs  when  the  housekeepers  came 
to  look  at  then.  If  a  man  sat  down  to  eat,  a  frog  alight- 
ed on  his  plate.  If  he  attempted  to  put  on  a  shoe,  it  was 
preoccupied  by  a  frog.  If  he  attempted  to  put  his  head 
upon  a  pillow,  it  had  been  taken  possession  of  by  a    frog. 

Frogs  high  and  low  and  everywhere,  loathsome  frogs, 
slimy  frogs,  besieging  frogs,  innumerable  frogs,  great 
plague  of  frogs.  What  made  the  matter  worse  the  mag- 
icians said  there  was  no  miracle    in    this,    and  that    they 

[48] 


BAD  BOOKS.  49 

could  by  sleight-of-hand  produce  the  same  thing,  and 
they  seemed  to  succeed,  for  by  sleight-of-hand  wonders 
may  be  wrought.  After  Moses  had  thrown  down  his 
staff  and  by  miracle  it  became  a  serpent,  and  then  he 
took  hold  of  it  and  by  miracle  it  again  became  a  staff, 
the  serpent  charmers  imitated  the  same  thing,  and 
knowing  that  there  were  serpents  in  Egypt  which  by  a 
peculiar  pressure  on  the  neck  would  become  as  rigid  as  a 
stick  of  wood,  they  seemed  to  change  the  serpent  into 
the  staff,  and  then,  throwing  it  down,  the  staff  became 
the  serpent. 

So  likewise  these  magicians  tried  to  imitate  the  plague 
of  frogs,  and  perhaps  by  smell  of  food  attracting  a  great 
number  of  them  to  a  certain  point,  or  by  shaking  them 
out  from  a  hidden  place,  the  magicians  sometimes  seemed 
to  accomplish  the  same  miracle.  While  these  magicians 
made  the  plague  worse,  none  of  them  tried  to  make  it 
better.  "Frogs  came  up  and  covered  the  land  of  Egypt, 
and  the  magicians  did  so  with  their  enchantment,  and 
brought  up  frogs  upon  the  land  of  Egypt." 

THE  MODERN  PLAGUE  OF   FROGS. 

Now  that  plague  of  frogs  has  come  back  upon  the 
earth.  It  is  abroad  to-day.  It  is  smiting  this  nation.  It 
comes  in  the  shape  of  corrupt  literarture.  The  frogs  hop 
into  the  store,  the  shop,  the  office,  the  banking  house, 
the  factory — into  the  home,  into  the  cellar,  into  the 
garret,  on  the  drawing  room  table,  on  the  shelf  of  the 
library.  While  the  lad  is  reading  the  bad  book  the 
teacher's  face  is  turned  the  other  way,  one  of  these 
frogs  hops  upon  the  page.  While  the  young  woman 
reads  the  forbidden  novelette  after  retiring  at  night,  read- 


50  EVirS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

ing  by  gaslight,  one  of  these  frogs  leaps  upon  the  page. 
Indeed  they  have  hopped  upon  the  news  stands  of  the 
country,  and  the  mails  at  the  postomce  shake  out  in  the 
letter  trough  hundreds  of  them.  The  plague  has  taken 
at  different  times  possession  of  this  country.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  loathsome,  one  of  the  most  frightful,  one  of 
the  most  ghastly  of  the  ten  plagues  of  our  modern  cities. 

There  is  a  vast  number  of  books  and  newspapers  print- 
ed and  published  which  ought  never  to  see  the  light. 
They  are  filled  with  a  pestilence  that  makes  the  land 
swelter  with  a  moral  epidmic.  The  greatest  blessing  that 
ever  came  to  this  nation  is  that  of  an  elevated  literature, 
and  the  greatest  scourge  has  been  that  of  unclean  liter- 
ature. Thif  last  has  its  victims  in  all  occupations  and 
departments.  It  has  helped  to  fill  insane  asylums  and 
penitentiaries  and  almhouses  and  dens  of  shame.  The 
bodies  of  this  infection  lie  in  the  hospitals  and  in  the 
graves,  while  thejr  souls  are  being  tossed  over  into  a 
lost  eternity,  an  avalanche  of  horror    and  despair. 

The  London  plague  was  nothing  to  it.  That  counted 
its  victims  by  thousands,  but  this  modern  pest  has  al- 
ready shoveled  its  millions  into  the  charnel  house  of  the 
morally  dead.  The  longest  rail  train  that  ever  ran  over 
the  Erie  or  Hudson  tracks  was  not  long  enough  nor  large 
enough  to  carry  the  beastliness  and  putrefaction  which 
have  been  gathered  up  in  bad  books  and  newspapers  of 
this  land  in  the  last  twenty  years.  The  literature  of  a 
nation  decides  the  fate  of  a  nation.  Good  books,  good 
morals.      Bad  books,  bad  morals. 

I  begin  with  the  lowest  of  all  the  literature,  that  which 
does  not  even  pretend  to  be  respectable — from    cover   to 


BAD  BOOKS.  51 

cover  a  blotch  of  leprosy.  There  are  many  whose  en- 
tire business  it  is  to  dispose  of  that  kind  of  literature. 
They  display  it  before  the  schoolboy  on  his  way  home. 
They  get  the  catalogues  of  schools  and  colleges,  take  the 
names  and  postomce  addresses,  and  send  their  advertise- 
ments, and  their  circulars,  and  their  pamphlets,  and  their 
books  to  every  one  of  them. 

THE   AMOUNT  OF  BAD  LITERATURE. 

In  the  possession  of  these  dealers  in  bad  literature  were 
found  nine  hundred  thousand  names  and  postomce  ad- 
dresses, to  whom  it  was  thought  it  might  be  profitable  to 
send  these  corrupt  things.  In  the  year  1 870  there  were  one 
hundred  and  sixty-five  establishments  engaged  in  publish- 
ing cheap,  corrupt  literature.  From  one  publishing 
house  there  went  out  twenty  different  styles  of  corrupt 
books.  Although  over  thirty  tons  of  vile  literature  have 
been  destroyed  by  the  Society  for  the  Suppression  of 
Vice,  still  there  is  enough  of  it  left  in  this  country  to 
bring  down  upon  us  the  thunderbolts  of  an  incensed  God. 

THE  LAWS    AGAINST    BAD  BOOKS. 

In  the  year  1868  the  evil  had  become  so  great  in  this 
country  that  the  congress  of  fhe  United  States  passed  a 
law  forbidding  the  transmission  of  bad  literature  through 
the  United  States  mails,  but  there  were  large  loops  in 
that  law  through  which  criminals  might  crawl  out,  and 
the  law  was  a  dead  failure — that  law  of  1868.  But  in 
1873  another  law  was  passed  by  the  congress  of  the 
United  Stares  against  the  transmission  of  corrupt  litera- 
ture through  the  mails — a  grand  law,  a  potent  law,  a 
Christian  law, — and  under  that  law  multitudes  of  these 
scoundrels  have  been  arrested,  their  property  confiscated 


52  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

and  they  themselves  thrown  into  the  penitentiaries  where 
they  belonged. 

HOW  ARE    WE  TO  WAR    AGAINST  IT? 

Now,  my  friends,  how  are  we  to  war  against  this  cor- 
rupt literature,  and  how  are  the  frogs  of  this  Egyptian 
plague  to  be  slain?  First  of  all  by  the  prompt  and  in- 
exorable execution  of  the  law.  Let  all  good  postmasters 
and  United  States  district  attorneys,  and  detectives  and 
reformers  concert  in  their  action  to  stop  this  plague. 
When  Sir  Rowland  Hill  spent  his  life  in  trying  to  secure 
cheap  postage  not  only  for  England,  but  for  all  the  world, 
and  to  open  the  blessing  of  the  postofnce  to  all  honest 
business,  and  to  all  messages  of  charity  and  kindness 
and  affection,  for  all  healthful  intercommunication,  he 
did  not  mean  to  make  vice  easy  or  to  fill  the  mail  bags 
ot  the  United  States  with  the  scabs  of  such  a  leprosy. 

It  ought  not  to  be  in  the  power  of  every  bad  man  who 
can  raise  a  one  cent  stamp  for  a  circular  or  a  two  cent 
stamp  for  a  letter  to  blast  a  man  or  destroy  a  home.  The 
postal  service  of  this  country  must  be  clean,  and  we 
must  all  understand  that  the  swift  retributions  of  the 
United  States  government  hover  over  every  violation  of 
the  letter  box. 

ENFORCE   THE    LAW. 

There  are  thousands  of  men  and  women  in  this  country, 
some  for  personal  gain,  some  through  innate  depravity, 
some  through  a  spirit  of  revenge,  who  wish  to  use  this 
great  avenue  of  convenience  and  intelligence  for  purposes 
revengeful,  salacious  and  diabolic.  Wake  up  the  law. 
Wake  up  all  its  penalties.  Let  every  court  room  on  this 
subject  be  a  Sinai  thunderous  and  aflame.      Let  the  con- 


BAD  BOOKS.  53 

victed  offenders  be  sent  for  the  full  term  to    Sing  Sing  or 
Harrisburg. 

I  am  not*  talking  about  what  cannot  be  done.  I  am 
talking  now  about  what  is  being  done.  A  great  many  of 
the  printing  presses  that  gave  themselves  entirely  to  the 
publication  of  vile  literature  have  been  stopped  or  have 
gone  into  business  less  obnoxious.  What  has  thrown  off, 
what  has  kept  off  the  rail  trains  of  this  country  for  some 
time  back  nearly  all  the  leprous  periodicals?  Those  of  us 
who  have  been  on  the  rail  trains  have  noticed  a  great 
change  in  the  last  few  months  and  the  last  year  or  two. 
Why  have  nearly  all  those  vile  periodicals  been  kept  off 
the  rail  trains  for  some  time  back?  Who  effected  it? 
These  societies  for  the  purificaticn  of  railroad  literature 
gave  warning  to  the  publishers,  and  warning  to  railroad 
companies,  and  warning  to  conductors,  and  warning  to 
newsboys,  to    keep  the  infernal  stuff  off  the  trains. 

Many  of  the  cities  have  successfully  prohibited  the 
most  of  that  literature  even  from  going  on  the  news 
stands.  Terror  has  seized  upon  the  publishers  and  the 
dealers  in  impure  literature,  from  the  fact  that  over  a 
thousand  arrests  have  been  made^  and  the  aggregate 
time  for  which  the  convicted  have  been  sentenced  to  the 
prison  is  over  one  hundred  and  ninety  years,  and  from 
the  fact  that  about  two  million  of  their  circulars  have 
been  destroyed,  and  the  business  is  not  as  profitable  as 
it  used  to  be. 

the  law!   the  law!  what  it  is  doing. 

How  have  so  many  of  the  news  stands  of  our  great 
cities  been  purified?  How  has  so  much  of  this  iniquity 
been  balked?     By  moral  suasion?     Oh,  no.        You  might 


54  EVILS  OF  THE  CITITS. 

as  well  go  into  a  jungle  of  the  East  Indies  and  pat  a  cobra 
on  the  neck,  and  with  profound  argument  try  to  persuade 
it  that  it  is  morally  wrong  to  bite  and  sting  and  to  poison 
anythfng.  The  only  answer  to  your  argument  would  be 
an  uplifted  head  and  a  hiss  and  a  sharp,  reeking  tooth 
struck  into  your  arteries.  The  only  argument  for  a 
cobra  is  a  shotgun,  and  the  only  argument  for  these 
dealers  in  impure  literature  is  the  clutch  of  the  police  and 
bean  soup  in  a  penitentiary.  The  law!  the  law!  I  in- 
voke to  consummate  the  work  so  grandly  begun! 

ANOTHER   WAY. 

Another  way  in  which  we  are  to  drive  back  this  p/ague 
of  Egyptian  frogs  is  by  filling  the  minds  of  our  young 
people  with  a  healthful  literature.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  all  the  books  and  newspapers  in  our  families  ought 
to  be  religious  books  and  newspapers,  or  that  every  song 
ought  to  be  sung  to  the  tune  of  "Old  Hundred."  I  have 
no  sympathy  with  the  attempt  to  make  the  young,  old.  I 
would  rather  join  in  a  crusade  to  keep  the  young,  young. 
Boyhood  and  girlhood  must  not  be  abbreviated.  But 
there  are  good  books,  good  histories,  good  biographies, 
good  works  of  fiction,  good  books  of  alhstyles  with  which 
we  are  to  fill  the  minds  of  the  young,  so  that  there  will 
be  no  more  room  for  the  useless  and  the  vicious  than  there 
is  room  for  chaff  in  a  bushel  measure  which  is  already 
filled  with  Michigan  wheat. 

Why  are  50  per  cent  of  the  criminals  in  the  jails  and 
penitentiaries  of  the  United  States  to-day  under  twenty- 
one  yea;s  of  age!  Many  of  them  under  seventeen,  under 
sixteen,  under  fifteen,  under  fourteen,  under  thirteen. 
Walk  along  one  of  the  corridors  of  the  Tombs   prison  in 


BAD  BOOKS.  55 

New  York  and  look  for  yourselves.  Bad  books,  bad 
newspapers,  bewitched  them  as  soon  as  they  got  out  of 
the  cradle.  Beware  of  all  those  stories  which  end  wrong. 
Beware  of  all  those  books  which  make  the  road  that  ends 
in  perdition  seem  to  end  in  Paradise.  Do  not  glorify  the 
dirk  and  the  pistol.  Do  not  call  the  desperado  brave  or 
the  libertine  gallant.  Teach  our  young  people  that  if 
they  go  down  into  the  swamps  and  marshes  to  watch  the 
jack-o'-lanterns  dance  on  the  decay  and  rottenness  they 
will  catch  the  malaria  and  death. 

"Oh,"  says  some  one,  *T  am  a  business  man,  and  I 
have  no  time  to  examine  what  my  children  read.  I  have 
no  time  to  inspect  that  come  into  my  household."  If 
your  children  were  threatened  with  typhoid  fever,  would 
you  have  time  to  go  for  the  doctor?  Would  you  have 
time  to  watch  the  progress  of  the  disease?  Would  you 
have  time  for  the  funeral?  In  the  presence  of  my  God  I 
warn  you  of  the  fact  that  your  children  are  threatened 
with  moral  and  spiritual  typhoid,  and  that  unless  the 
thing  be  stopped  it  will  be  to  them  funeral  of  body, 
funeral  of  mind,  funeral  of  soul.  Three  funerals  in  one 
day. 

My  word  is  to  this  vast  multitude  of  young  people:  Do 
not  touch,  do  not  borrow,  do  not  buy  a  corrupt  book,  or 
a  corrupt  picture.  A  book  will  decide  a  man's  destiny 
for  good  or  for  evil.  The  book  you  read  yesterday  may 
have  decided  you  for  time  and  for  eternity,  or  it  may  be 
a  book  that  may  come  into  your  possession  to-morrow. 

THE  POWER  OF  A   BAD  BOOK. 

A  good  book — who  can  exaggerate  its  power? 
Benjamin  Franklin  said  that  his  reading   of    Cotton 


$6  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

Mather's  '  'Essays  to  Do  Good"  in  childhood  gave  him 
holy  aspirations  for  all  the  rest  of  his  life. 

George  Law  declared  that  a  biography  he  read  in  child- 
hood gave  him  all  his  subsequent  prosperities. 

A  clergyman  many  years  ago,  passing  to  the  far  west, 
stopped  at  a  hotel.  He  saw  a  woman  copying  something 
from  Doddrige's  ''Rise  and  Progress. "  It  seemed  that 
she  had  borrowed  the  book,  and.there  were  some  things 
she  wanted  especially  to  remember. 

The  clergyman  had  in  his  satchel  a  copy  of  Doddrige's 
"Rise  and  Progress,"  and  so  he  made  her  a  present  of  it. 
Thirty  years  passed  on.  The  clergyman  came  that  way, 
and  he  asked  where  the  woman  was  whom  he  had  seen 
so  long  ago. 

"She  lives  yonder  in  that  beautiful  house." 

He  went  there  and  said  to  her.  "Do  you  remember 
me?" 

She  said,   "No  I  do  not." 

He  said,  '  'Do  you  remember  a  man  gave  you  Doddrige's 
'Rise  and  Progress'  thirty  years  ago?" 

"Oh,  yes;  I  remember.  That  book  saved  my  soul.  I 
loaned  the  book  to  all  my  neighbors,  and  they  read  it 
and  they  were  converted  to  God,  and  we  had  a  revival  of 
religion  which  swept  through  the  whole  community.  We 
built  a  church  and  called  a  pastor.  You  see  that  spire 
yonder,  don't  you?  That  church  was  built  as  the  result 
of  that  book  you  gave  me  thirty    years  ago." 

Oh,  the  power  of  a  good  book!  But,  alas!  for  the  in- 
fluence of  a  bad  book. 

John  Angel  James,  than  whom  England  never  had  a 
holier  minister,  stood  in  his  pulpit    at  Birmingham    and 


BAD  BOOKS.  57 

said:  "Twenty-five  years  ago  a  lad  loaned  to  me  an  in- 
famous book.  He  would  loan  it  only  fifteen  minutes, 
and  then  I  had  to  give  it  back,  but  that  book  has  haunted 
me  like  a  specter  ever  since.  I  have  in  agony  of  soul, 
on  my  knees  before  God,  prayed  that  he  would  obliterate 
from  my  soul  the  memory  of  it,  but  I  shall  carry  the  dam- 
age of  it  until  the  day  of  my  death." 

The  assassin  of  Sir  William  Russell  declared  that  he 
got  the  inspiration  for  his  crime  by  reading  what  was  then 
a  new  and  popular  novel,  "Jack  Sheppard." 

Homer's  "Iliad"  made  Alexander  the  warrior.  Alex- 
ander said  so.  The  story  of  Alexander  made  Julius 
Caesar  and  Charles  XII  both  men  of  blood. 

Have  you  in  your  pocket,  or  in  your  trunk,  or  in  your 
desk  at  business  a  bad  book,  a  bad  picture;  a  bad  pam- 
phlet?    In  God's  name  I  warn  you  to  destroy  it. 

THE   CHRISTIAN  PRESS. 

Another  way  in  which  we  shall  fight  back  this  corrupt 
literature  and  kill  the  frogs  of  Egypt  is  by  rolling  over 
them  the  Christian  printing  press,  which  shall  give  plenty 
of  healthful  reading  to  all  adults.  All  these  men  and 
women  are  reading  men  and  women.  What  are  you 
reading?  Abstain  from  all  those  books  which,  while  they 
have  some  good  things  about  them,  have  also  an  admixture 
of  evil.  You  have  read  books  that  had  two  elements  in 
them — the  good  and  the  bad.  Which  stuck  to  you? 
The  bad!  The  heart  of  most  people  is  like  a  sieve,  which 
lets  the  small  particles  of  gold  fall  through,  but  keeps  the 
great  cinders.  Once  in  a  while  there  is  a  mind  like  a 
loadstone,  which,  plunged  amid  steel  and  brass  fillings, 
gathers   up  the  steel  and  repels  the  brass.      But  it  is  gen- 


58  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

erally  the  opposite.  If  you  attempt  to  plunge  through  a 
fence  of  burrs  to  get  one  blackberry,  you  will  get  more 
burrs  than   blackberries. 

You  cannot  afford  to  read  a  bad  book,  however  good 
you  are.  You  say,  "The  influence  is  insignificant."  I 
tell  you  that  the  scratch  of  a  pin  has  sometimes  produced 
lockjaw.  Alas,  if  through  curiosity,  as  many  do,  you  pry 
into  an  evil  book,  your  curiosity  is  as  dangerous  as  that 
of  the  man  who  would  take  a  torch  into  a  gunpowder  mill 
merely  to  see  whether  it  would  really  blow  up  or  not. 

In  a  menagerie  a  man  put  his  arm  through  the  bars  of 
a  black  leopard's  cage.  The  animal's  hide  looked  so 
sleek  and  bright  and  beautiful.  He  just  stroked  it  once. 
The  monster  seized  him,  and  he  drew  forth  a  hand  torn 
and  mangled  and  bleeding. 

Oh,  touch  not  evil  even  with  the  faintest  stroke! 
Though  it  may  be  glossy  and  beautiful,  touch  it  not  lest 
you  pull  forth  your  soul  torn  and  bleeding  under  the  clutch 
of  the  black  leopard. 

"But,"  you  say,  "how  can  I  find  out  whether  a  book 
is  good  or  bad  without  reading  it?"  There  is  always 
something  suspicious  about  a  bad  book.  I  never  knew 
an  exception — something  suspicious  in  the  index  or  style 
of  illustration.  This  venemous  reptile  almost  always 
carries  a  warning  rattle. 

The  clock  strikes  midnight.  A  fair  form  bends  over  a 
romance.  The  eyes  flash  fire.  The  breath  is  quick  and 
irregular.  Occasionally  the  color  dashes  to  the  cheek, 
and  then  dies  out.  The  hands  tremble  as  though  a 
guardian  spirit  were  trying  to  shake  the  deadly  book  out 
of  the  grasp.       Hot  tears  fall.       She  laughs  with  a  shrill 


BAD    BOOKS.  59 

voice  that  drops  dead  at  its  own  sound.  The  sweat  on 
her  brow  is  the  spray  dashed  up  from  the  river  of  death. 
The  clock  strikes  four,  and  the  rosy  dawn  soon  after  be- 
gins to  look  through  the  lattice  upon  the  pale  form  that 
looks  like  a  detained  specter  of  the  night.  Soon  in  a 
mad  house  she  will  mistake  her  ringlets  for  curling  ser- 
pents, and  thrust  her  white  hand  through  the  bars  of  the 
prison,  and  smite  her  head,  rubbing  it  back  as  though  to 
push  the  scalp  from  the  skull,  shrieking:  "My  brain!  my 
brain!"  Oh,  stand  off  from  that!  Why  will  you  go  sound- 
ing your  way  amid  the  reefs  and  warning  buoys,  when 
there  is  such  a  vast  ocean  in  which  you  may  voyage,  all 
sail  set? 

We  see  so  many  books  we  do  not  understand  what  a 
book  is.  Stand  it  on  end.  Measure  it — the  height  of  it, 
the  depth  of  it,  the  length  of  it,  the  breadth  of  it.  You 
cannot  do  it.  Examine  the  paper  and  estimate  the  pro- 
gress made  from  the  time  of  the  impressions  on  clay,  and 
then  on  to  the  bark  of  trees,  and  from  the  bark  of  trees 
to  papyrus,  and  from  papyrus  to  the  hide  of  wild  beasts, 
and  from  the  hide  of  wild  beasts  on  down  until  the  mir- 
acles of  our  modern  paper  manufactories,  and  then  see 
the  paper,  white  and  pure  as  an  infant's  soul,  waiting  for 
God's  inscription. 

A  book!  Examine  the  type  of  it.  Examine  the  printing 
of  it,  and  see  the  progress  from  the  time  when  Solon's 
laws  were  written  on  oak  planks,  and  Hesiod's  poems 
were  written  on  tables  of  lead,  and  the  Sinaitic  commands 
were  written  on  tables  of  stone,  on  down  to  Hoe's  per- 
fecting printing  press. 

A  book!     It  took  all  the  universities  of  the  past,  all  the 


60  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

martyr  fires,  all  the  civilizations,  all  the  battles,  all  the 
victories,  all  the  defeats,  all  the  glooms,  all  the  bright- 
nesses, all  the  centuries  to  make  it  possible. 

A  book!  It  is  the  chorus  of  ages;  it  is  the  drawing 
room  in  which  kings  and  queens  and  orators  and  poets 
and  historians  come  out  to  greet  you.  If  I  worshipped 
anything  on  earth  I  would  worship  that.  If  I  burned 
incense  to  any  idol  I  would  build  an  altar  to  that. 

Thank  God  for  good  books,  healthful  books,  inspiring 
books,  Christian  books,  books  of  men,  books  of  women, 
Book  of  God.  It  is  with  these  good  books  that  we  are 
to  overcome  corrupt  literature.  Upon  the  frogs  swoop 
with  these  eagles.  I  depend  much  for  the  overthrow  of 
iniquitous  literature  upon  the  mortality  of  books.  Even 
good  books  have  a  hard  struggle  to  live. 

Polybius  wrote  forty  books;  only  five  of  them  left. 
Thirty  books  of  Tacitus  have  perished.  Twenty  books 
of  Pliny  have  perished.  Livy  wrote  one  hundred  and 
forty  books;  only  thirty-five  of  them  remain.  ^Eschylus 
wrote  one  hundred  dramas;  only  seven  remain.  Euripides 
wrote  over  a  hundred;  only  nineteen  remain.  Varro  wrote 
the  biographies  of  over  seven  hundred  great  Romans. 
All  that  wealth  of  biography  has  perished.  If  good  and 
valuable  books  have  such  a  struggle  to  live,  what  must 
be  the  state  of  those  that  are  deceased  and  corrupt  and 
blasted  at  the  very  start.  They  will  die  as  the  frogs 
when  the  Lord  turned  back  the  plague.  The  work  of 
Christianization  will  go  on  until  there  will  be  nothing 
left  but  good  books,  and  they  will  take  the  supremacy  of 
the  world.  May  you  and  I  live  to  see  the  illustrious  day! 
Against  every    bad    pamphlet   send   a    good     pamphlet; 


BAD  BOOKS.  6 1 

against  every  unclean  picture  send  an  innocent  picture; 
against  every  scurrilous  song  send  a  Christian  song; 
against  every  bad  book  send  a  good  book;  and  then  it 
will  be  as  it  was  in  ancient  Toledo,  where  the  Toletum 
missals  were  kept  by  the  saints  in  six  churches,  and  the 
sacrilegious  Romans  demanded  that  those  missals  be 
distroyed,  and  that  the  Roman  missals  be  substituted; 
and  the  war  came  on,  and  I  am  glad  to  say  that  the 
whole  matter  having  been  referred  to  champions,  the 
champion  of  the  Toletum  missals  with  one  blow  brought 
down  the  champion  of  the  Roman  missals. 

So  it  will  be  in  our  day.  The  good  literature,  the 
Christian  literature,  in  its  championship  for  God  and  the 
truth,  will  bring  down  the  evil  literature  in  its  champion- 
ship for  the  devil.  I  feel  tingling  to  tfc*  tips  of  my  fingers 
and  through  all  the  nerves  of  my  body,  and  all  the  depths 
of  my  soul,  the  certainty  of  our  triumph.  Cheer  up,  oh, 
men  and  women  who  are  toiling  for  the  purification  of 
society!  Toil  with  your  faces  in  the  sunlight.  "If  God 
be  for  us,  who,  who  can  be  against  us?" 

LADY   STANHOPE. 

Lady  Hester  Stanhope  was  the  daughter  of  the  third 
Earl  of  Stanhope,  and  after  her  nearest  friends  had  died 
she  went  to  the  far  east,  took  possession  of  a  deserted 
convent,  threw  up  fortresses  amid  the  mountains  of  Le- 
banon, opened  the  castle  to  the  poor,  and  the  wretched, 
and  the  sick  who  would  come  in.  She  made  her  castle 
a  home  for  the  unfortunate.  She  was  a  devout  Christian 
woman.  She  was  waiting  for  the  coming  of  the  Lord. 
She  expected  that  the  Lord  would  descend  in  person, 
and  she  thought    upon  it    until   it  was  too  much    for  her 


62  EVILS   OF   THE    CITIES. 

reason.  In  the  magnificent  stables  of  her  palace  she  had 
two  horses  groomed  and  bridled  and  saddled  and  capari- 
soned and  all  ready  for  the  day  in  which  her  Lord  should 
descend,  and  He  on  one  of  them  and  she  on  the  other 
should  start  for  Jerusalem,  the  city  of  the  Great  King.  It 
was  a  fanaticism  and  a  delusion;  but  there  was  romance, 
and  there  was  splendor,  and  there  was  thrilling  expecta- 
tion in  the  dream! 

Ah,  my  friends,  we  need  no  earthly  palfreys  groomed 
and  saddled  and  bridled  and  caparisoned  for  our  Lord 
when  He  shall  come.  The  horse  is  ready  in  the  equerry 
of  heaven,  and  the  imperial  rider  is  ready  to  mount. 
"And  I  saw,  and  behold  a  white  horse,  and  He  that  sat 
on  him  had  a  bow;  and  a  crown  was  given  unto  him;  and 
he  went  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer.  And  the  armies 
which  were  in  heaven  followed  him  on  white  horses,  and 
on  his  vesture  and  on  his  thigh  were  written,  King  of 
kings,  and  Lord  of  lords. " 

Horse-men  of  heaven,  mount!  Cavalry  of  God,  ride 
on!  Charge!  charge!  until  they  shall  be  hurled  back  on 
their  haunches — the  black  horse  of  famine,  and  the  red 
horse  of  carnage,  and  the  pale  horse  of  death.  Jesus 
forever! 


l^JL    ,i«   ;i ■  I ■  ■  ■  i •,---_:•- , v"-'/<'/4£*#\ •  ,;i  \ '    .     'I'   il    [I   V    !' 


id  il  r-» 


AMUSEMENTS. 


AMUSEMENTS. 


"Let  the  young  men  now  arise  and  play  before  us."     II  Samuel,     2,  14 

here  are  two  armies  encamped  by  the  pool  of 
Gibeon.  The  time  hangs  heavily  on  their  hands. 
One  army  proposes  a  game  of  sword-fencing. 
Nothing  could  be  more  healthful  and  innocent.  The 
other  army  accepts  the  challenge.  Twelve  men  against 
twelve  men,  the  sport  opens.  But  something  went  ad- 
versely. Perhaps  one  of  the  swordsmen  got  an  unlucky 
clip,  or  in  some  way  had  his  ire  aroused,  and  that  which 
opened  in  sportfulness  ended  in  violence,  each  one 
taking  his  contestant  by  the  hair,  and  then  with  the 
sword  thrusting  him  in  the  side;  so  that  that  which  opened 
in  innocent  fun  ended  in  the  massacre  of  all  the  twenty 
four  sportsmen.  Was  there  ever  a  better  illustration  of 
what  was  true  then,  and  is  true  now,  that  that  which  is 
innocent  may  be  made  destructive?  What  of  a  wordly 
nature  is  more  important  and  strengthening  and  innocent 
than  amusement,  and  yet  what  has  counted  mere  victims? 
I  have  no  sympathy  with  a  straight-jacket  religion.  This 
is  a  very  bright  world  to  me,  and  I  propose  to  do  all  I 
can  to  make  it  bright  for  others. 

A     BEAUTIFUL    WORLD. 

I  never  could  keep  step  to  a  dead  march.  A  book 
years  ago  issued  says  that  a  Christian  man  has  a  right 
to  some  amusements;  for  instance,  if  he  comes  home  at 
night  weary  from  his  work,  and,    feeling  the    need   of  re- 

[63] 


64  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

creation,  puts  on  his  slippers  and  goes  into  his  garret, 
and  walks  lively  around  the  floor  several  times,  there  can 
be  no  harm  in  it.  I  believe  the  Church  of  God  has  made 
a  tremendous  mistake  in  trying  to  suppress  the  sportful- 
ness  of  youth,  and  drive  out  from  men  their  love  of 
amusement.  If  God  ever  implanted  anything  in  us  he 
implanted  this  desire.  But  instead  of  providing  for  this 
demand  of  our  nature  the  Church  of  God  has,  for  the 
main  part,  ignored  it.  As  in  a  riot  the  Mayor  plants  a 
battery  at  the  end  of  the  street,  and  has  it  fired  off,  so 
that  everything  is  cut  down  that  happens  to  stand  in  the 
range,  the  good  as  well  as  the  bad,  so  there  are  men  in 
the  church  who  plant  their  batteries  of  condemnation  and 
fire  away  indiscriminately.  Everything  is  condemned. 
But  my  Bible  commends  those  who  use  the  world  without 
abusing  it,  and  in  the  natural  world  God  has  done  every- 
thing to  please  and  amuse  us.  In  poetic  figure  we  some- 
times speak  of  natural  objects  as  being  in  pain,  but  it  is 
a  mere  fancy.  Poets  say  the  clouds  weep,  but  they 
never  yet  shed  a  tear;  and  that  the  winds  sigh,  but  they 
never  did  have  any  trouble;  and  that  the  storm  howls, 
but  it  never  lost  its  temper.  The  world  is  a  rose,  and 
the  universe  a  garland. 

And  I  am  glad  to  know  that  in  all  our  cities  there  are 
plenty  of  places  where  we  may  find  elevated  moral  enter- 
tainment. But  all  honest  men  and  good  women  will  agree 
with  me  in  the  statement  that  one  of  the  worst  plagues  of 
these  cities  is  corrupt  amusement.  Multitudes  have  gone 
down  under  the  blasting  influence,  never  to  rise.  If  we 
may  judge  of  what  is  going  on  in  many  of  the  places  of 
amusement  by  the  Sodomic  pictures  on  board-fences,  and 


AMUSEMENTS.  6$ 

in  many  of  the  show-windows,  there  is  not  a  much  lower 
depth  of  profligacy  to  reach.  At  Naples,  Italy,  they 
keep  such  pictures  locked  up  from  indiscriminate  inspec- 
tion. Those  pictures  were  exhumed  from  Pompeii  and 
are  not  fit  for  public  gaze.  If  the  effrontery  of  bad  places 
of  amusement  in  hanging  out  improper  advertisement  of 
what  they  are  doing  night  by  night  grows  worse  in  the 
same  proportion,  in  fifty  years  New  York  and  Brooklyn 
will  beat  not  only  Pompeii  but  Sodom. 

RIGHT  AND   WRONG  RECREATION. 

To  help  stay  the  plague  now  raging,  I  project  certain 
principles  by  which  you  may  judge  in  regard  to  any 
amusement  or  recreation,  finding  out  for  yourselves 
whether  it  is  right,    or  whether  it  is  wrong. 

I  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  you  can  judge  of  the 
moral  character  of  any  amusement  by  its  healthful  result, 
or  by  its  baleful  reaction.  There  are  people  who  seem 
made  up  of  hard  facts.  They  are  a  combination  of 
multiplication  tables  and  statistics.  If  you  show  them 
an  exquisite  picture,  they  will  begin  to  discuss  the  pig- 
ments involved  in  the  coloring.  If  you  show  them  a 
beautiful  rose,  they  will  submit  it  to  a  botanical  analysis, 
which  is  only  the  post  mortem  examination  of  a  flower. 
They  have  no  rebound  in  their  nature.  They  never  do 
anything  more  than  smile.  These  are  no  great  tides  of 
feeling  surging  up  from  the  depths  of  their  soul,  in  billows 
of  reverberating  laughter.  They  seem  as  if  nature  had 
built  them  by  contract,  and  made  a  bungling  job  out  of  it. 
But,  blessed  be  God,  there  are  people  in  the  world 
who  have  bright  faces,  and  whose  life  is  a  song,  an  an- 
them, a  paean  of  victory.        Even  their  troubles   are  like 


66  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

the  vines  that  crawl  up  the  side  of  a  great  tower,  on  the 
top  of  which  the  sunlight  sits,  and  the  soft  airs  of  summer 
holds  perpetual  carnival.  They  are  people  you  like  to 
have  come  to  your  house:  they  are  the  people  I  like  to 
have  come  to  my  house.  If  you  but  touch  the  hem  of 
their  garments  you  are  healed. 

Now  it  is  these  exhilarent,  sympathetic,  and  warm- 
hearted people  that  are  most  tempted  to  pernicious 
amusements.  In  proportion  as  a  ship  is  swift  it  wants  a 
strong  helmsman;  in  proportion  as  a  horse  is  gay,  it  wants 
a  stout  driver;  and  these  people  of  exuberant  nature  will 
do  well  to  look  at  the  reaction  of  all  their  amusements. 
If  an  amusement  sends  you  home  at  night  nervous,  so 
that  you  cannot  sleep,  and  you  rise  up  in  the  morning, 
not  because  you  have  slept  out,  but  because  your  duty 
drags  you  from  your  slumbers,  you  have  been  where  you 
ought  not  to  have  been.  There  are  amusements  that 
send  a  man  next  day  to  his  work  bloodshot,  yawing, 
stupid,  nauseated;  and  there  are  wrong  kinds  of  amuse- 
ments. They  are  entertainments  that  give  a  man  disgust 
with  the  drudgery  of  life,  with  tools  because  they  are  not 
swords,  with  working  aprons  because  they  are  not  robes, 
with  cattle  because  they  are  not  infuriated  bulls  of  the 
arena.  If  any  amusement  sends  you  home  longing  for  a 
life  of  romance  and  thrilling  adventure,  love  that  takes 
poison  and  shoots  itself,  moonlight  adventures  and  hair- 
breadth escapes,  you  may  depend  upon  it  that  you  are 
the  sacrificed  victims  of  unsanctified  pleasure.  Our  re- 
creations are  intended  to  build  us  up,  and  if  they  pull  us 
down  as  to  our  moral  or  as  to  our  physical  strength,  you 
may  come  to  the  conclusion  that    they    are  obnoxious. 


AMUSEMENTS.  6j 

There  is  nothing  more  depraving  than  an  attendance 
upon  amusements  that  are  full  of  innuendo  and  low  sug- 
gestions. The  young  man  enters.  At  first  he  sits  far 
back,  with  his  hat  on  and  his  coat-collar  up,  fearful  that 
somebody  there  may  know  him.  Several  nights  pass  on. 
He  takes  off  his  hat  earlier,  and  puts  his  coat-collar  down. 
The  blush  that  first  came  into  his  cheek  when  anything 
indecent  was  enacted  comes  no  more  to  his  cheek.  Fare- 
well, young  man!  You  have  probably  started  on  the 
long  road  which  ends  in  consummate  destruction.  The 
stars  of  hope  will  go  out  one  by  one,  until  you  will  be 
left  in  utter  darkness.  Hear  you  not  the  rush  of  the 
maelstrom,  in  whose  outer  circle  your  boat  now  dances, 
making  merry  with  the  whirling  waters?  But  you  are 
being  drawn  in,  and  the  gentle  motion  will  become  terrific 
agitation.  You  cry  for  help.  In  vain!  You  pull  at  the 
oar  to  put  back,  but  the  struggle  will  not  avail!  You 
will  be  tossed,  and  dashed,  and  shipwrecked,  and  swallow- 
ed in  the  whirlpool  that  has  already  crushed  in  its  wrath 
10,000  hulks.  Young  men  who  have  just  come  from 
country  residence  to  city  residence  will  do  well  to  be  on 
guard,  and  let  no  one  induce  you  to  places  of  improper 
amusement.  It  is  mightily  alluring  when  a  young  man, 
long  a  citizen,  offers  to  show  a  new-comer  all  around. 

Still  further;  those  amusements  are  wrong  which  lead 
you  into  expenditure  beyond  your  means.  Money  spent 
in  recreation  is  not  thrown  away.  It  is  all  folly  for  us  to 
come  to  a  place  of  amusement  feeling  that  we  have  wast- 
ed our  money  and  time.  You  may  by  it  have  made  an 
investment  worth  more  than  the  transaction  that  yielded 
you  hundreds  of   thousands   of  dollars.        But  how  many 


68  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

properties    have    been  riddled    by   costly    amusements. 

MY  FIRST  EXPERIENCE  IN  A  LARGE  CITY. 

The  first  time  I  ever  saw  the  city — it  was  the  city  of 
Philadelpia — I  was  a  mere  lad.  I  stopped  at  a  hotel, 
and  I  remember  in  the  even-tide  one  of  these  men  plied 
me  with  his  infernal  art.  He  saw  I  was  green.  He 
wanted  to  show  me  the  sights  of  the  town.  He  painted 
the  path  of  sin  until  it  looked  like  emerald;  but  I  was 
afraid  of  him.  I  shoved  back  from  the  basilisk — I  made 
up  my  mind  he  was  a  basilisk.  I  remember  how  he 
wheeled  his  chair  around  in  front  of  me,  and  with  a  con- 
centered and  diabolical  effort,  attempted  to  destroy  my 
soul;  but  there  were  good  angels  in  the  air  that  night.  It 
was  no  good  resolution  on  my  part,  but  it  was  the  all-en- 
compassing grace  of  a  good  God  that  delivered  me.  Be- 
ware! beware!  oh,  young  man.  "There  is  a  way  that 
seemeth  right  unto  a  man,  but  the  end  thereof  is  death." 
The  table  has  been  robbed  to  pay  the  club.  The  cham- 
pagne has  cheated  the  children's  wardrobe.  The  carousing 
party  has  burned  up  the  boy's  primer.  The  table  cloth 
of  the  corner  saloon  is  in  debt  to  the  wife's  faded  dress. 
Excursions  that  in  a  day  make  a  tour  around  a  whole 
month's  wages;  ladies  whose  life  time  business  is  to  "go 
shopping;"  large  bets  on  horses,  have  their  counterparts 
in  uneducated  children,  bankruptcies  that  shock  the 
money  market  and  appall  the  church;  and  that  send 
drunkenness  staggering  accross  the  richly-figured  carpet 
of  the  mansion,  and  dashing  into  the  mirror,  and  drown- 
ing out  the  carol  of  music  with  the  whooping  of  bloated 
sons  come  home  to  break  their  old  mother's  heart. 
I  saw  a  beautiful  home,    where  the    bell  rang  violently 


AMUSEMENTS.  69 

late  at  night.  The  son  had  been  off  in  sinful  indulgences. 
His  comrades  were  bringing  him  home.  They  carried 
him  to  the  door.  They  rang  the  bell  at  1  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Father  and  mother  came  down.  They  were 
waiting  for  the  wandering  son,  and  then  the  comrades,  as 
soon  as  the  door  was  opened  threw  the  prodigal  headlong 
into  the  doorway,  crying,  ''There  he  is,  drunk  as  a  fool. 
Ha,  ha!"  When  men  go  into  amusements  that  they  can- 
not afford,  they  first  borrow  what  they  cannot  earn,  and 
then  they  steal  what  they  cannot  borrow.  First  they  go 
into  embarrassment,  and  then  into  lying,  and  then  into 
theft;  and  when  a  man  gets  as  far  on  as  that,  he  does  not 
stop  short  of  the  penitentiary.  There  is  not  a  prison  in 
the  land  where  there  are  not  victims  of  unsanctified 
amusements. 

ON  THE    DOWN    GRADE. 

Merchants  of  Brooklyn,  or  New  York,  is  there  a  dis- 
arangement  in  your  accounts?  Is  there  a  leakage  in 
your  money  drawer?  Did  not  the  cash  account  come 
out  right  last  night?  [  will  tell  you.  There  is  a  young 
man  in  your  store  wandering  off  into  bad  amusements! 
The  salary  you  give  him  may  meet  lawful  expenditures, 
but  not  the  sinful  indulgences  in  which  he  has  entered^ 
and  he  takes  by  theft  that  which  you  do  not  give  him  iu 
lawful  salary. 

How  brightly  the  path  of  unrestrained  amusement 
opens!  The  young  man  says,  '-Now  I  am  off  for  a  good 
time.  Never  mind  economy.  I'll  get  money  somehow! 
What  a  fine  road!  What  a  beautiful  day  for  a  ride! 
Crack  the  whip,  and  over  the  turnpike!  Come,  boys, 
fill  high  you  glasses.      Drink!      Long  life,  health,    plenty 


70  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

of  rides  just  like  this!"  Hard-working  men  hear  the 
clatter  of  the  hoofs,  and  look  up  and  say:  "Why,  I 
wonder  where  those  fellows  get  their  money  from!  We 
have  to  toil  and  drudge;  they  do  nothing!"  To  these  gay 
men  life  is  a  thrill  and  an  excitement.  They  stare  at 
other  people,  and  in  turn  are  stared  at.  The  watch-chain 
jingles.  The  cup  foams.  The  cheeks  flush.  The  eyes 
flash.  The  midnight  hears  their  guffaw.  They  swagger. 
They  jostle  decent  men  off  the  side-walk.  They  take 
the  name  of  God  in  vain.  They  parody  the  hymn  they 
learned  at  their  mother's  knee;  and  to  all  pictures  of  dis- 
aster they  cry  out,  "Who  cares!"  and  to  the  counsel  of 
some  Christian  friend,  "Who  are  you?" 
the  crash! 

Passing  along  the  street  some  night,  you  hear  a  shriek 
in  grogshop,  the  rattle  of  the  watchman's  club,  the  rush 
of  the  police.  What  is  the  matter  now?  Oh,  the  reck- 
less young  man  has  been  killed  in  a  grogshop  fight.  Carry 
him  home  to  his  father's  house.  Parents  will  come  down 
and  wash  his  wounds,  and  close  his  eyes  in  death.  They 
forgive  him  all  he  ever  did,  although  he  cannot  in  his 
silence  ask  it.  The  prodigal  has  got  home  at  last. 
Mother  will  go  to  her  little  garden  and  gather  the  sweet- 
est flowers  and  twist  them  into  a  chaplet  for  the  silent 
heart  of  the  wayward  boy,  and  push  back  from  the 
bloated  brow  the  long  locks  that  were  once  her  pride. 
And  the  air  will  be  rent  with  agony.  The  great  drama- 
tist says;  "How  sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth  it  is  to 
have  a  thankless  child." 

I  go  further,  and  say  those  are  unchristian  amusements 
which  become  the  chief  business  of  a  man's  life.        Life 


AMUSEMENTS.  J I 

is  an  earnest  thing.  Whether  we  were  born  in  a  palace 
or  hovel;  whether. we  are  affluent  or  pinched,  we  have  to 
work.  If  you  do  not  sweat  with  toil,  you  will  sweat  with 
disease.  You  have  a  soul  that  will  be  transfigured  amidst 
the  pomp  of  a  judgement  day;  and  after  the  sea  has  sung 
its  last  chant,  and  the  mountain  shall  have  come  down 
in  an  avalanche  of  rock,  you  will  live  and  think  and  act, 
high  on  a  throne  where  seraphs  sing,  or  deep  in  a  dun- 
geon where  demons  howl.  In  a  world  where  there  is  so 
much  to  do  for  yourselves,  and  so  much  to  do  for  others, 
God  pity  that  man  who  has  nothing  to  do. 

AMUSEMENTS  ARE  MEANS  TO  AN  END. 

Your  sports  are  merely  means  to  an  end.  They  are 
alleviations  and  helps.  The  arm  of  toil  is  the  only  arm 
strong  enough  to  bring  up  the  bucket  out  of  the  deep  well 
of  pleasure.  Amusement  is  only  the  bower  where  busi- 
ness and  philanthropy  rest  while  on  their  way  to  stirring 
achievements.  Amusements  are  only  the  vines  that  grow 
about  the  anvil  of  toil,  and  the  blossoming  of  the  ham- 
mers. Alas  for  the  man  who  spends  his  time  in  labor- 
iously doing  nothing,  his  days  in  looking  up  lounging 
places  and  loungers,  his  nights  in  seeking  out  some  gas- 
lighted  foolery!  The  man  who  always  has  on  his  sporting 
jacket,  ready  to  hunt  for  the  game  in  the  mountain  or 
fish  in  the  brook,  with  no  time  to  pray,  or  work,  or  read, 
is  not  so  well  off  as  the  greyhound  that  runs  by  his  side, 
or  the  fly  bait  with  which  he  whips  the  streams. 

A  man  who  does  not  work  does  not  know  how  to  play. 
If  God  had  intended  us  to  do  nothing  but  laugh  he  would 
not  have  given  us  shoulders  with  which  to  lift,  and  hands 
with  which  to  work,  and    brains  with    which    to    think. 


72  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

The  amusements  of  life  are  merely  the  orchestra  playing 
while  the  great  tragedy  of  life  plunges  through  its  five 
acts — infancy,  childhood,  manhood,  old  age  and  death. 
Then  exit  the  last  earthly  opportunity.  Enter  the  over- 
whelming realities  of  an  eternal  world! 

I  go  further,  and  say  that  all  those  amusements  are 
wrong  which  lead  into  bad  company.  If  you  go  to  any 
place  where  you  have  to  associate  with  the  intemperate, 
with  the  unclean,  with  the  abandoned,  however  well 
they  may  be  dressed,  in  the  name  of  God  quit  it.  They 
will  despoil  your  nature.  They  will  undermine  your 
moral  character.  They  will  drop  you  when  you  are 
destroyed.  They  will  give  not  one  cent  to  support  your 
children  when  you  are  dead.  They  will  weep  not  one 
tear  at  your  burial.  They  will  chuckle  over  your  dam- 
nation. 

DOWNFALL  OF  A    FRIEND. 

I  had  a  friend  at  the  West — a  rare  friend.  He  was 
one  of  the  first  to  welcome  me  to  my  new  home.  To  fine 
personal  appearance  he  added  a  generosity,  frankness, 
and  ardor  of  nature  that  made  me  love  him  like  a  brother. 
But  I  saw  evil  people  gathering  around  him.  They  came 
up  from  the  saloons,  from  the  gambling  hells.  They 
plied  him  with  a  thousand  arts.  They  seized  upon  his 
social  nature,  and  he  could  not  stand  the  charm.  They 
drove  him  on  the  rocks,  like  a  ship  full  winged, 
shivering  on  the  breakers.  I  used  to  admonish  him.  I 
would  say: 

"Now,  I  wish  you  would  quit  these  bad  habits,  and 
become  a  Christian." 

"Oh,"  he  would   reply,    4T  would  like  to;  I  would  like 


AMUSEMENTS.  73 

to;  but  I  have  gone  so  far  I  don't    think  there  is  any  way 
back." 

In  his  moments  of  repentance  he  would  go  home  and 
take  his  little  girl  of  eight  years,  and  embrace  her  con- 
vulsively, and  cover  her  with  adornments,  and  strew 
around  her  pictures  and  toys,  and  everything  that  could 
make  her  happy:  and  then,  as  though  hounded  by  an  evil 
spirit,  he  would  go  out  to  the  enflaming  cup  and  the 
house  of  shame,  like  a  fool  to  the  correction  of  the  stocks. 

AT    HIS    DEATH  BED. 

I  was  summoned  to  his  death-bed.  I  hastened.  I 
entered  the  room.  I  found  him,  to  my  surprise,  lying  in 
full  everyday  dress  on  the  top  of  the  couch.  I  put  out 
my  hand.      He  grasped  it  excitedly,  and  said: 

"Sit  down,  Mr.  Talmage,  right  there."    I  sat  down. 

He  said:  "Last  night  I  saw  my  mother,  who  has  been 
dead  twenty  years,  and  she  sat  just  where  you  sit  now. 
It  was  no  dream.  I  was  wide-awake.  There  was  no 
delusion  in  the  matter.  I  saw  her  just  as  plainly  as  I 
see  you.  Wife,  I  wish  you  would  take  these  strings  off 
of  me.  There  are  strings  spun  all  around  my  body.  I 
wish  you  would  take  them  off  of  me." 

I  saw  it  was  delirium. 

"Oh,"  replied  the  wife,  "my  dear  there  is  nothing 
there,  there  is  nothing  there." 

He  went  on,  and  said:    Just  where  you  sit,  Mr.  Talmage, 
my  mother  sat.      She  said  to  me: 

"Henry  I  do  wish  you  would  do  better."  I  got  out  of 
bed,  put  my  arms  around  her  and  said,  'Mother,  I  want 
to  do  better.  I  have  been  trying  to  do  better.  Won't 
you  help  me  to  do  better?      You  used  to  help  me.'       No 


74  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

mistake  about  it,  no  delusion.  I  saw  her — the  cap  and 
the  apron  and  the  spectacles,  just  as  she  used  to  look 
twenty  years  ago — but  I  do  wish  you  would  take  these 
strings  away.  They  annoy  me  so.  I  can  hardly  talk. 
Won't  you  take  them  away?" 

I  knelt  down    and  prayed,    conscious  of  the    fact  that  he 
did  not  realize   what  I  was  saying.        I  got  up.        1  said 
"Good-bye;  I  hope  you  will  be  better  soon." 
He  said,  "Good-bye,    good-bye." 

That  night    his   soul   went    to  the    God  who  gave  it. 

Arrangements  were  made  for  the  obsequies.      Some  said, 

"Don't  bring  him  in  the  church;  he  was  too  dissolute." 

"Oh,"   I  said,   "bring  him.        He  was  a  good  friend  of 

mine  while  he  was  alive,    and  I  shall  stand  by    him    now 

that  he  is  dead.      Bring  him  to    the  church." 

AT  HIS    FUNERAL. 

As  I  sat  in  the  pulpit  and  saw  his  body  coming  up 
through  the  aisle,  I  felt  as  if  I  could  weep  tears  of  blood. 
I  told  the  people  that  day,  "This  man  had  his  virtues 
and  a  good  many  of  them.  He  had  his  faults  and  a 
good  many  of  them.  But  if  there  is  any  man  in  this 
audience  who  is  without  sin,  let  him  cast  the  first  stone 
at  this  coffin  lid."  On  one  side  the  pulpit  sat  the  little 
child,  rosy,  sweet-faced,  as  beautiful  as  any  little  child 
that  sat  at  your  table  this  morning,  I  warrant  you.  She 
looked  up  wistfully,  not  knowing  the  full  sorrows  of  an 
orphan  child.  Oh,  her  countenance  haunts  me  to-day, 
like  some  sweet  face  looking  upon  us  through  a  horrid 
dream 

HIS    DESTROYERS. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  pulpit  were  the  men  who  had 


AMUSEMENTS.  75 

destroyed  him.  There  they  sat,  hard-visaged,  some  of 
them  pale  from  exhausting  disease,  some  of  them  flushed 
until  it  seemed  as  if  the  fires  of  iniquity  flamed  through 
the  cheek  and  ciackled  the  lips.  They  were  the  men 
who  had  done  the  work.  They  were  the  men  who  had 
bound  him  hand  and  foot.  They  had  kindled  the  fires. 
They  had  poured  the  wormwood  and  gall  into  that 
orphan's  cup.  Did  they  weep?  No.  Did  they  sigh 
repentingly?  No.  Did  they  say:  «  'What  a  pity  that 
such  a  brave  man  should  be  slain?"  No,  no;  not  one 
bloated  hand  was  lifted  to  wipe  a  tear  from  a  bloated 
cheek.  They  sat  and  looked  at  the  coffin  like  vultures 
gazing  at  the  carcass  of  a  lamb  whose  heart  they  had 
ripped  out!  I  cried  in  their  ears  as  plainly  as  I  could: 
"There  is  a  God  and  a  judgement  day!"  Did  they 
tremble.  Oh,  no,  no.  They  went  back  from  the  house 
of  God,  and  that  night,  though  their  victim  lay  in  Oak- 
wood  Cemetery,  I  was  told  that  they  blasphemed,  and 
they  drank,  and  they  gambled,  and  there  was  not  one  less 
customer  in  all  the  houses  of  iniquity.  This  destroyed 
man  was  a  Samson  in  physical  strenglh.  but  Delilah 
sheared  him,  and  the  Philistines  of  evil  companionship 
dug  his  eyes  out  and  threw  them  into  the  prison  of  evil 
habits.  But  in  the  hour  of  his  death  he  rose  up  and  took 
hold  of  the  two  pillared  curses  of  God  against  drunken- 
ness and  uncleanness,  and  threw  himself  forward,  until 
down  upon  him  and  his  companions  there  came  the 
thunders  of  an  eternal  catastrophe. 

Again:  Any  amusement  that  gives  you  a  distaste  for 
domestic  life  is  bad.  How  many  bright  domestic  circles 
have  been  broken  up  by  sinful  amusements!     The  father 


j6  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

went  off,  the  mother  went  off,  the  child  went  off.  There 
are  to-day  the  fragments  before  me  of  blasted  house- 
holds. Oh,  if  you  have  wandered  away,  I  would  like  to 
charm  you  back  by  the  sound  of  that  one  word  "home.'' 
Do  you  not  know  that  you  havj  but  little  more  time  to 
give  to  domestic  welfare?  Do  you  not  see,  father,  that 
your  children  are  soon  to  go  out  into  the  world,  and  all 
the  influence  for  good  you  are  to  have  over  them  you 
must  have  now?  Death  will  break  in  on  your  conjugal 
relations,  and  alas,  if  you  have  to  stand  over  the  grave  of 
one  who  perished  from  your  neglect! 

GIVE  TO  HOME    YOUR  BEST  AFFECTIONS. 

I  saw  a  waywaad  husband  standing  at  the  death-bed  of 
his  Christian  wife,  and  I  saw  her  point  to  a  ring  on  her 
finger,  and  heard  her  say  to  her  husband,  "Do  you  see 
that  ring?"  He  replied,  "Yes,  I  see  it."  "Well,"  said 
she,  "Do  you  remember  who  put  it  there?"  "Yes,"  said 
he,  "I  put  it  there;"  and  all  the  past  seemed  to  rush 
upon  him.  By  the  memory  of  that  day  when,  in  the 
presence  of  men  and  angels,  you  promised  to  be  faithful 
in  joy  or  sorrow,  and  in  sickness  and  health;  by  the 
memory  of  those  pleasant  hours  when  you  sat  together  in 
your  new  home  talking  of  a  bright  future;  by  the  cradle 
and  the  joyful  hour  when  one  life  was  spared  and  another 
given;  by  that  sick-bed,  when  the  little  one  lifted  up  the 
hands  and  called  for  help,  and  you  knew  he  must  die, 
and  he  put  one  arm  around  each  of  your  necks  and  brought 
you  very  near  together  in  that  dying  kiss;  by  the  little 
grave  in  Greenwood  that  you  never  think  of  without  a 
rush  of  tears;  by  the  family  Bible,  where  amidst  stories 
of  heavenly  love,    is  the  brief    but    expressive    record  of 


AMUSEMENTS.  fj 

births  and  deaths;  by  the  neglects  of  the  past,  and  by 
the  agonies  ot  the  future;  by  a  judgement  day,  when  hus- 
bands and  wives,  parents  and  children,  in  immortal 
groups,  will  stand  to  be  caught  up  in  shining  array,  or  to 
shrink  down  into  darkness;  by  all  that,  I  beg  you  to  give 
to  home  your  best  affections. 

FINAL  FALL  OF    THE  CURTAIN. 

Ah,  my  friends,  there  is  an  hour  coming  when  our 
past  life  will  probably  pass  before  us  in  review.  It  will 
be  our  last  hour.  If  from  our  death  pillow  we  have  to 
look  back  and  see  a  life  spent  in  sinful  amusement,  there 
will  be  a  dart  that  will  strike  through  our  soul  sharper 
than  the  dagger  with  which  Virginius  slew  his  child. 
The  memory  of  the  past  will  make  us  quake  like  Mac- 
beth. The  iniquities  and  rioting  through  which  we  have 
passed  will  come  upon  us,  weird  and  skeleton  as  Meg  Mer- 
rillies.  Death,  the  old  Shylock,  will  demand,  and  take 
the  remaining  pound  of  flesh,  and  the  remaining  drop  of 
blood;  and  upon  our  last  opportunity  for  repentance,  and 
our  last  chance  for  heaven,  the  curtain  will  forever  drop. 


THE  PLAGUE  OF  LIES. 


"Ye  shall  not  surely  die"        Genesis  iii,  4. 

.hat  was  a  point  blank  lie.  Satan  told  it  to  Eve 
to  induce  her  to  put  her  semicircle  of  white,  beau- 
tiful teeth  into  a  forbidden  apricot  or  plum  or 
peach  or  apple.  He  practically  said  to  her:  "Oh,  Eve, 
just  take  a  bite  of  this  and  you  will  be  omnipotent  and 
omniscient.  You  shall  be  as  gods."  Just  opposite  was 
the  result.  It  was  the  first  lie  that  was  ever  told  in  our 
world.  It  opened  the  gate  for  all  the  falsehoods  that 
have  ever  alighted  on  this  planet.  It  introduced  a  plague 
that  covers  all  nations — the  plague  of  lies.  Far  worse 
than  the  plagues  of  Egypt,  for  they  were  on  the  banks  of 
the  Nile,  but  this  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  on  the 
banks  of  the  East  River,  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  and 
the  Missisisppi,  and  the  Thames,  and  the  Rhine,  and  the 
Tiber,  and  on  both  sides  of  all  rivers.  The  Egyptian 
plagues  lasted  only  a  few  weeks,  but  for  six  thousand 
years  has  raged  this  plague  of  lies. 

WHITE  AND    BLACK    LIES. 

There  are  a  hundred  ways  of  telling  a  lie.  A  man's 
entire  life  may  be  a  falsehood,  while  with  his  lips  he  may 
not  once  directly  falsify.  There  are  those  who  state 
what  is  positively  untrue,  but  afterward  say  "may  be" 
softly.  These    departures    from  the  truth    are    called 

"white  lies;"  but  there  is  really  no  such  thing  as  a  white 
lie. 

The  whitest  lie  that  was  ever  told  was  as  black  as  per- 

[78] 


JOSEPH   SOLD    IN  1 0  ECjiPI 


* 


PLAGUE     OF  LIES.  79 

dition.  No  inventory  of  public  crimes  will  be  sufficient 
that  omits  this  gigantic  abomination.  There  are  men 
high  in  church  and  state  actually  useful,  self  denying  and 
honest  in  many  things,  who,  upon  certain  subjects  and 
in  certain  spheres,  are  not  at  all  to  be  depended  upon  for 
veracity.  Indeed,  there  are  many  men  and  women  who 
have  their  notions  of  truthfulness  so  thoroughly  perverted 
that  they  do  not  know  when  they  are  lying.  With  many 
it  is  a  cultivated  sin;  with  some  it  seems  a  natural  in- 
firmity. I  have  known  people  who  seem  to  have  been 
born  liars.  The  falsehoods  of  their  lives  extended  from 
cradle  to  grave.  Prevarications,  misrepresentation  and 
dishonesty  of  speech  appeared  in  their  first  utterances, 
and  were  as  natural  to  them  as  any  of  their  infantile 
diseases,  and  were  a  sort  of  moral  croup  or  spiritual 
scarlatina.  But  many  have  been  placed  in  circumstances 
where  this  tendency  has  day  by  day  and  hour  by  hour 
been  called  to  larger  developments.  They  have  gone 
from  attainment  to  attainment  and  from  class  to  class 
until  they  have  become  regularly  graduated  liars. 

THE    CITIES    ARE    FULL  OF    LIES. 

The  air  of  the  city  is  filled  with  falsehoods.  They 
hang  pendent  from  the  chandeliers  of  our  finest  residences; 
they  crowd  the  shelves  of  some  of  our  merchant  princess; 
they  fill  the  sidewalk  from  curb  stone  to  brown  stone 
facing;  they  cluster  around  the  mechanic's  hammer,  and 
blossom  from  the  end  of  the  merchant  yard-stick,  and 
sit  in  the  doors  of  churches.  Some  call  them  ' 'fiction." 
Some  style  them  "fabrication."  You  might  say  that  they 
were  subterfuge,  disguised,  delusion,  romance,  evasion, 
pretense,  fable,    deception,    misrepresentation;    but,  as  I 


80  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

am  ignorant  of  anything  to  be  gained  by  the  hiding  of  a 
God  defying  outrage  under  a  lexicographers  blanket,  I 
shall  call  them  what  my  father  taught  me  to  call  them 
—  lies. 

I  shall  divide  them  into  agricultural,  mercantile, 
mechanical,  ecclesiastical  and  social  lies. 

AGRICULTURAL   LIES. 

First,  then,  I  will  speak  of  those  that  are  more  partic- 
ularly agricultural.  There  is  something  in  the  perpetual 
presence  of  natural  objects  to  make  a  man  pure.  The 
trees  never  issue  ''false  stock."  Wheat  fields  are  always 
honest.  Rye  and  oats  never  move  out  in  the  night,  not 
paying  for  the  place  they  have  occupied.  Corn  shocks 
never  make  false  assignments.  Mountain  brooks  are 
always  "current."  The  gold  on  the  grain  is  never  counter- 
feit. The  sunrise  never  flaunts  in  false  colors.  The 
dew  sports  only  genuine  diamonds.  Taking  farmers  as  a 
class,  I  believe  they  are  truthful  and  fair  in  dealing  and 
kind  hearted.  But  the  regions  surrounding  our  cities  do 
not  always  send  this  sort  of  men  to  our  markets.  Day 
by  day  there  creak  through  our  streets  and  about  the 
market  houses  farm  wagons  that  have  not  an  honest 
spoke  in  their  wheels  or  a  truthful  rivet  from  tongue  to 
tailboard. 

During  the  last  few  years  there  have  been  times  when 
domestic  economy  has  foundered  on  the  farmer's  firkin. 
Neither  high  taxes,  nor  the  high  price  of  dry  goods,  nor 
the  exorbitancy  of  labor,  could  excuse  much  that  the  city 
has  witnessed  in  the  behavior  of  the  yeomanry.  By  the 
auiet  firesides  in  Westchester  and  Oranere  counties  I  lm^e, 
^ere  may  be  seasons  of  deep    reflection    and    hearty  re- 


PLAGUE    OF    LIES.  8 1 

pentance.  Rural  districts  are  accustomed  to  rail  at  great 
cities  as  given  up  to  fraud  and  every  form  of  unrighteous- 
ness, but  our  cities  do  not  absorb  all  the  abominations. 
Our  citizens  have  learned  the  importance  of  not  always 
trusting  to  the  size  and  style  of  apples  in  the  top  of  a 
farmer's  barrel  as  an  indication  of  what  may  be  found 
farther  down.  Many  of  our  people  are  accustomed  to 
watch  and  see  how  correctly  a  bushel  or  beets  is  measured, 
and  there  are   not  many  honest  milk  cans. 

Deceptions  do  not  all  cluster  around  city  halls.  When 
our  cities  sit  down  and  weep  over  their  sins,  all  the  sur- 
rounding countries  ought  to  come  in  and  weep  with 
them.  There  is  often  hostility  on  the  part  of  producers 
against  traders,  as  though  the  man  who  raises  the  corn 
was  necessarily  more  honorable  than  the  grain  dealer 
who  pours  it  into  his  mammoth  bin.  There  ought  to  be 
no  such  hostility.  Yet  producers  often  think  it  no  wrong 
to  snatch  away  from  the  trader;  and  they  say  to  the  bar- 
gain maker,  "You  get  your  money  easy."  Do  they  get 
it  easy?  Let  those  who  in  the  quiet  field  and  barn  get 
their  living  exchange  places  with  those  who  stand  to-day 
amid  the  excitements  of  commercial  life  and  see  if  they 
find  it  so  very  easy. 

While  the  farmer  goes  to  sleep  with  the  assurance  that 
his  corn  and  barley  will  be  growing  all  the  night,  moment 
by  moment  adding  to  his  revenue,  the  merchant  tries  to 
go  to  sleep  conscious  that  that  moment  his  cargo  may  be 
broken  on  the  rocks  or  damaged  by  the  wave  that  sweeps 
clear  across  the  hurricane  deck,  or  that  reckless  specula- 
tors may  that  very  hour  be  plotting  some  momentary 
revolution,    or  the  burgulars  be   prying  open  his  safe,  or 


82  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

his  debtors  fleeing  the  town,  or  his  landlord  raising  the 
rent,  or  the  fires  kindling  on  the  block  that  contains  all 
his  estate.  Easy!  Is  it?  God  help  the  merchants!  It 
is  hard  to  have  the  palms  of  the  hand  blistered  with  out- 
door work,  but  a  more  dreadful  process  when  through 
mercantile  anxieties  the   brain  is  consumed. 

MERCANTILE    LIES. 

In  the  next  place  we  notice  mercantile  lies,  those  be- 
fore the  counter  and  behind  the  counter.  I  will  not  at- 
tempt to  specify  the  diflerent  forms  of  commercial  false- 
hood. There  are  merchants  who  excuse  themselves  for 
what  they  call  commercial  custom.  In  other  words,  the 
multiplication  and  university  of  a  sin  turns  it  into  a  virtue. 
There  have  been  large  fortunes  gathered  where  there  was 
not  one  drop  of  unrequited  toil  in  the  wine;  nor  one  spark 
of  bad  temper  flashing  from  the  bronze  bracket;  nor  one 
drop  of  needle  woman's  heart  blood  in  the  crimson  plush, 
while  there  are  other  great  estsblishments  in  which  there 
is  not  one  door  knob,  not  one  brick,  not  one  trinket,  not 
one  thread  of  lace  but  has  upon  it  the  mark  of  dishonor. 
What  wonder  if,  some  day,  a  hand  of  toil  that  had  been 
wrung  and  worn  out  and  blistered  until  the  skin  came  off 
should  be  placed  against  the  elegant  wall  paper,  leaving 
its  mark  of  blood — four  fingers  and  a  thumb — or  that 
some  day,  walking  the  halls,  there  should  be  a  voice  ac- 
costing the  occupant,  saying,  '  'Six  cents  for  making  a 
shirt,"  and,  flying  the  room  another  voice  should  say, 
"Twelve  cents  for  an  army  blanket,"  and  the  man  should 
try  to  sleep  at  night,  but  ever  and  anon  be  aroused,  until, 
getting  up  on  one  elbow,  he  shrieks  out,  "Who's  there?" 
One  Sabbath  night,    in  the  vestibule  of  my  church  after 


PLAGUE    OF    LIES.  83 

service,  a  woman  fell  in  convulsions.  The  doctor  said 
she  needed  medicine  not  so  much  as  something  to  eat. 
As  she  began  to  revive  in  her  delirium,  she  said  grasping- 
ly:  "Eight  cents!  Eight  cents!  Eight  cents!  I  wish  I 
could  get  it  done;  I  am  so  tired!  I  wish  I  could  get  some 
sleep,  but  I  must  get  it  done!  Eight  cents!  Eight  cents!'' 
We  found  afterward  she  was  making  garments  for  eight 
cents  apiece,  and  that  she  could  make  but  three  of  them 
in  a  day!  Three  times  eight  are  twenty-four!  Hear  it, 
men  and  women  who  have  comfortable  homes! 

THE  WORST  VILLIANS    OF  THE  CITY. 

Some  of  the  worst  villians  of  the  city  are  the  employers 
of  these  women.  They  beat  them  down  to  the  last 
penny,  and  try  to  cheat  them  out  of  that.  The  woman 
must  deposit  a  dollar  or  two  before  she  gets  the  garment 
to  work  on.  When  the  work  is  done  it  is  sharply  in- 
spected, the  most  insignificant  flaws  picked  out,  and  the 
wages  refused,  and  sometimes  the  dollar  deposited  not 
given  back.  The  Women's  Protective  Union  reports  a 
case  where  one  of  these  poor  souls,  finding  a  place  where 
she  could  get  more  wages,  resolved  to  change  employers, 
and  went  to  get  her  pay  for  work  done.  The  employer 
says,  "I  hear  you  are  going  to  leave  me."  "Yes,"  she 
said,  "I  am  come  to  get  what  you  owe  me."  He  made 
no  answer.  She  said,  "Are  you  not  going  to  pay  me?'' 
"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  will  pay  you;"  and  he  kicked  her  down 
the  stairs. 

There  are  thousands  of  fortunes  made  in  commercial 
spheres  that  are  throughout  righteous.  God  will  let  His 
favor  rest  upon  ever  scroll,  every  pictured  wall,  every 
traceried  window,  and  the  joy  that  flashes  from  the  lights, 


84  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

and  showers  from  the  music  and  dances  in  the  children's 
quick  feet,  pattering  through  the  hall,  will  utter  the  con- 
gratulations from  men  and  the  approval  of  God. 

THERE  IS  NO  NEED  OF  FALSEHOOD. 

A  merchant  can,  to  the  last  item,  be  thoroughly  honest. 
There  is  never  any  need  of  falsehood.  Yet  how  many 
will,  day  by  day,  hour  by  hour,  utter  what  they  know  to 
be  wrong.  You  say  that  you  are  selling  at  less  than 
cost.  If  so,  then  it  is  right  to  say  it.  But  did  that  cost 
you  lest  than  what  you  ask  for  it?  If  not,  then  you  have 
falsffied.  You  say  that  that  article  cost  you  twenty-five 
dollars.  Did  it?  If  so,  then  all  right.  If  it  did  not, 
then  you  have  falsified. 

Suppose  you  are  a  purchaser.  You  are  ''beating  down'' 
the  goods.  You  say  that  that  article  for  which  five  dol- 
lars is  charged  is  not  worth  more  than  four.  Is  it  worth 
no  more  than  four  dollars?  Then  all  right.  If  it  be 
worth  more,  and  for  the  sake  of  getting  it  less  than  its 
value,  you  wilfully  depreciate  it,  you  have  falsified.  You 
may  call  it  a  sharp  trade.  The  recording  angel  writes 
it  down  on  the  ponderous  tomes  of  eternity.  "Mr.  So- 
and-so,  merchant  on  Wall  street  or  in  Eight  street  or  in 
State  street,  or  Mrs.  So-and-so,  keeping  house  on  Beacon 
street  or  on  Madison  avenve  or  Rittenhouse  square  or 
Brooklyn  Heights  or  Brooklyn  Hill,  told  one  falsehood." 
You  may  consider  it  insignificant  because  relating  to  an 
insignificant  purchase.  You  would  despise  the  man  who 
would  falsify  in  regard  to  some  great  matter  in  which  the 
city  or  the  whole  country  was  concerned;  but  this  is  only 
a  box  of  buttons,  or  a  row  of  pins,  or  a  case  of  needles. 
Be  not  deceived.      The  article  purchased  may  be  so  small 


PLAGUE    OF    LIES.  85 

you  can  put  it  in  your  vest  pocket,  but  the  sin  was  bigger 
than  the  Pyramids,  and  the  echo  of  the  dishonor  will  re- 
verberate through  all  the  mountains  of  eternity. 

LYING  DOES  NOT  PAY. 

You  throw  on  your  counter  some  specimens  of  hand- 
kerchiefs. Your  customer  asks:  "Is  that  all  silk?  No 
cotton  in  it?"  You  answer,  "It  is  all  silk."  Was  it  all 
silk?  If  so,  all  right.  But  was  it  partly  cotton?  Then 
you  have  falsified.  Moreover,  you  lost  by  the  falsehood. 
The  customer,  though  he  may  live  at  Lynn  or  Doyles- 
town  or  Poughkeepsie,  will  find  out  that  )'OU  have' de- 
frauded him,  and  next  spring  when  he  again  comes  shop- 
ping he  will  look  at  your  sign  and  say:  "I  will  not  try 
there!  That  is  the  place  where  I  got  that  handkerchief.'' 
So  that  by  that  one  dishonest  bargain  you  picked  your 
own  pocket  and  insulted  the  Almighty. 

Would  you  dare  to  make  an  estimate  of  how  many 
falsehoods  in  trade  were  yesterday  told  by  hardware  men 
and  clothiers  and  fruit  dealers,  and  dry  goods  establish- 
ments and  importers  and  jewelers  and  lumbermen  and 
coal  merchants  and  stationers  and  tobacconists?  Lies 
about  saddles,  about  buckles,  about  ribbons,  about  car- 
pets, about  gloves,  about  coats,  about  shoes,  about  hats, 
about  watches,  about  carriages,  about  books — about 
everything.  In  the  name  of  the  Lord  Almighty,  I  ar- 
raign commercial  falsehoods  as  one  of  the  greatest  plagues 
in  city  and  town. 

MECHANICAL   LIES. 

In  the  next  place  I  notice  mechanical  lies.  There 
ts  uo  class  of  men  who  administer  more  to  the  welfare  of 
the  city  than  artisans.       To  their  hand  we  must  look  for 


86  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

the  buildings  that  shelter  us,  for  the  garments  that 
clothe  us,  for  the  car  that  carries  us.  They  wield  a 
widespread  influence.  There  is  much  derision  of  what 
is  called  "Muscular  Christianity,"  but  in  the  latter  day 
of  the  world's  prosperity  I  think  that  the  Christian  will 
be  muscular.  We  have  a  right  to  expect  of  those  stal- 
wart men  of  toil  the  highest  possible  integrity.  Many 
of  them  answer  all  our  expectations,  and  stand  at  the 
front  of  religious  and  philanthropic  enterprises.  But 
this  class,  like  the  others  that  I  have  named,  has  in  it 
those  who  lack  in  the  element  of  veracity.  They  cannot 
all  be  trusted:  In  times  when  the  demand  for  labor  is 
great  it  is  impossible  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  public, 
or  do  work  with  that  promptness  and  perfection  that 
would  at  other  times  be  possible. 

But  there  are  mechanics  whose  word  cannot  be  trust- 
ed at  any  time.  No  man  has  a  right  to  promise  more 
work  than  he  can  do.  There  are  mechanics  who  say  that 
they  will  come  on  Monday,  but  they  do  not  come  until 
Wednesday.  You  put  work  in  their  hands  that  they  tell 
you  shall  be  completed  in  ten  days,  but  it  is  thirty. 
There  have  been  houses  built  of  which  it  might  be  said 
that  every  nail  driven,  every  foot  of  plastering  put  on, 
every  yard  of  pipe  laid,  every  shingle  hammered,  every 
brick  mortared,  could  tell  of  falsehoods  connected  there- 
with. There  are  men  attempting  to  do  ten  or  fifteen 
pieces  of  work  who  have  not  the  time  or  strength  to  do 
more  than  five  or  six  pieces,  but  by  promises  never  ful- 
filled keep  all  the  undertakings  within  their  own  grasp. 
This  is  what  they  call  "nursing"  the  job. 

How  much  wrong   to    his  soul   and    insult   to    God    a 


PLAGUE    OF    LIES.  87 

mechanic  would  save  if  he  promised  only  so  much  as  he 
expected  to  be  able  to  do.  Society  has  no  right  to  ask 
of  you  impossibilities.  You  cannot  always  calculate 
correctly,  and  you  may  fail  because  you  cannot  get  the 
help  that  you  anticipate.  But  now  I  am  speaking  of  the 
wilful  making  of  promises  that  you  know  you  cannot 
keep.  Did  you  say  that  that  shoe  should  be  mended,  that 
coat  repaired,  those  bricks  laid,  that  harness  sewed,  that 
door  grained,  that  spout  fixed  or  that  window  glazed  by 
Saturday,  knowing  that  you  would  neither  be  able  to  do 
it  yourself  nor  get  anyone  else  to  do  it?  Then,  before 
God  and  man  you  are  a  liar.  You  may  say  that  it  makes 
no  particular  difference,  and  that  if  you  had  told  the 
truth  you  would  have  lost  the  job,  and  that  people  ex- 
pect to  be  disappointed,  but  that  excuse  will  not  answer. 
Their  is  a  voice  of  thunder  rolling  among  the  drills  and 
planes  and  shoe  lasts  and  shears  which  says,  "All  liars 
shall  have  their  part  in  the  lake  that  burneth  with  fire 
and  brimstone." 

ECCLESIASTICAL  LIES. 

I  next  notice  ecclesiastical  lies — that  is,  falsehoods 
told  for  the  purpose  of  advancing  churches  and  sects,  or 
for  the  purpose  of  depleting  them.  There  is  no  use  in 
asking  many  a  Calvinist  what  an  Arminian  believes,  for 
he  will  be  apt  to  tell  you  that  the  Arminian  believes  that 
a  man  can  convert  himself;  or  to  ask  the  Arminian  what 
the  Calvinist  believes,  for  he  will  tell  you  that  the  Cal- 
vanist  believes  that  God  made  some  men  just  to  damn 
them.  There  is  no  need  in  asking  a  paedo-Baptist  what 
a  Baptist  believes,  for  he  will  be  apt  to  say  that  the 
Baptist  believes  immersion  to  be   positively  necessary  to 


88  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

salvation.  It  is  almost  impossible  for  one  denomination 
of  Christians,  without  prejudice  or  misrepresentation,  to 
state  the  sentiment  of  an  opposing  sect.  If  a  man  hates 
Presbyterians,  and  you  ask  him  what  Presbyterians  be- 
lieve, he  will  tell  you  that  they  believe  that  there  are  in- 
fants in  hell  a  span  long! 

It  is  strange,  also,  how  individual  churches  will  some- 
times make  misstatements  about  other  individual  churches. 
It  is  especially  so  in  regard  to  falsehoods  told  with  re- 
ference to  prosperous  enterprises.  As  long  as  a  church 
is  feeble,  and  the  singing  is  discordant,  and  the  minister, 
through  the  poverty  of  the  church,  must  go  with  a  thread- 
bare coat,  and  here  and  there  a  worshipper  sits  in  the 
end  of  a  pew,  having  all  the  seat  to  himself,  religious 
sympathizers  of  other  churches  will  say,  "What  a  pity!'' 
But  let  a  great  day  of  prosperity  come,  and  even  minis- 
ters of  the  Gospel,  who  ought  to  be  rejoiced  at  the  large- 
ness and  extent  of  the  work,  denounce  and  misrepresent 
and  falsify,  starting  the  suspicion  in  regard  to  themselves 
that  the  reason  they  do  not  like  the  corn  is  because  it  is 
not  ground  in  their  own  mill.  How  long  before  we  shall 
learn  to  be  fair  in  our  religious  criticisms!  The  keenest 
jealousies  on  earth  are  church  jealousies.  The  field  of 
Christian  work  is  so  large  that  there  is  no  need  that  our 
hoe  handles  hit. 

SOCIAL  LIES.  V 

Next  I  speak  of  social  lies.  This  evil  makes  much  of 
society  insincere.  You  know  not  what  to  believe.  When 
people  ask  you  to  come,  you  do  not  know  whether  or  not 
they  want  you  to  come.  When  they  send  their  regards, 
you    do    not    know    whether   it  is  an    expression  of  their 


PLAGUE    OF    LIES.  89 

heart,  or  an  external  civility.  We  have  learned  to  take 
almost  everything  at  a  discount.  Word  is  sent  "Not  at 
home,"  when  they  are  only  too  lazy  to  dress  themselves. 
They  say,  "The  furnace  has  just  gone  out,"  when  in 
truth  they  have  had  no  fire  in  it  all  winter.  They  apol- 
ogize for  the  unusual  barrenness  of  their  table,  when  they 
never  live  any  better.  They  decry  their  most  luxurious 
entertainments  to  win  a  shower  of  approval.  They 
apologize  for  their  appearance,  as  though  it  were  un- 
usual, when  always  at  home  they  look  just  so.  They 
would  make  you  believe  that  some  nice  sketch  on  the 
wall  was  the  work  of  a  master  painter.  "It  was  an  heir- 
loom, and  once  hung  on  the  wall  of  a  castle,  and  a  duke 
gave  it  to  their  grandfather."  When  the  fact  is,  that 
painting  was  made  by  a  man  "down  east,"  and  baked  so 
as  to  make  it  look  old,  and  sold  with  others  for  ten  dol- 
lars a  dozen.  People  who  will  lie  about  nothing  else,  will 
lie  about  a  picture.  On  a  small  income  we  must  make 
the  world  believe  that  we  are  affluent,  and  our  life  be- 
comes a  cheat,  a  counterfeit  and  a  sham. 

Few  persons  are  really  natural.  When  I  say  this  I  do 
not  mean  to  slur  cultured  manners.  It  is  right  that  we 
should  have  more  admiration  for  the  sculptured  marble 
than  for  the  unknown  block  of  the  quarry.  From  many 
circles  in  life  insincerity  has  driven  out  vivacity  and  en- 
thusiasm. A  frozen  dignity  instead  floats  about  the 
room,  and  iceberg  grinds  against  iceberg.  You  must  not 
laugh  outright;  it  is  vulgar.  You  must  smile.  You 
must  not  dash  rapidly  across  the  room;  you  must  glide. 
There  is  a  round  of  bows  and  grins  and  flatteries  and 
ohs!   and    ahs!    and  simpering,   and  nambypambyism — a 


90  EVILS  OF    THE    CITIES. 

world  of  which,  is  not  worth  one  good,  round,  honest 
peal  of  laughter.  From  such  a  hollow  round,  the  tor- 
tured guest  retires  at  the  close  of  the  evening  and  assures 
his  host  that  he  has  enjoyed  himself! 

What  a  round  of  insincerities  many  people  run  in  order 
to  win  the  favor  of  the  world!  Their  life  is  a  sham  and 
their  death  an  unspeakable  sadness.  Alas  for  the  poor 
butterflies  when  the  frost  strikes  them! 

Compare  the  life  and  death  of  such  a  one  with  that  of 
some  Christian  aunt  who  was  once  a  blessing  to  your 
household.  I  do  not  know  that  she  was  ever  offered  the 
hand  in  marriage.  She  lived  single,  that  untrammeled 
she  might  be  everybody's  blessing.  Whenever  the  sick 
were  to  be  visited,  or  the  poor  to  be  provided  with  bread, 
she  went  with  a  blessing.  She  could  pray,  or  sing 
"Rock  of  Ages"  for  any  sick  pauper  who  asked  her.  As 
she  got  older  there  were  days  when  she  was  a  little  sharp, 
but  auntie  was  a  sunbeam — just  the  one  for  Christmas 
eve.  She  knew  better  than  any  one  else  how  to  fix  things. 
Her  every  prayer,  as  God  heard  it,  was  full  of  everybody 
who  had  trouble.  The  brightest  things  in  all  the  house 
dropped  from  her  fingers.  She  had  peculiar  notions, 
but  the  grandest  notion  she  ever  had  was  to  make  you 
happy.  She  dressed  well — auntie  always  dressed  well; 
but  her  highest  adornment  was  that  of  a  meek  and  quiet 
spirit,  which,  in  the  sight  of  God,  is  of  great  price. 
When  she  died  you  all  gathered  lovingly  about  her,  and 
as  you  carried  her  out  to  rest  the  Sunday  school  class  al- 
most covered  the  coffin  with  japonicas,  and  the  poor 
people  stood  at  the  end  of  the  alley,  with  their  aprons  to 
their  eyes,    sobbing    bitterly;    and    the  man  of  the  world 


PLAGUE   OF    LIES.  91 

said,  with  Solomon,  "Her  price  was  above  rubies,"  and 
Jesus,  as  unto  the  maiden  in  Judea  commanded,  "I  say 
unto  thee,  arise!" 

But  to  many,  through  insincerity,  this  life  is  a  masque- 
rade ball.  As  at  such  entertainments  gentlemen  and 
ladies  appear  in  the  dress  of  kings  or  queens,  mountain 
bandits  or  clowns,  and  at  the  close  of  the  dance  throw  off 
their  disguises,  so  in  this  dissipated  life  all  unclean  pas- 
sions move  in  mask.  Across  the  floor  they  trip  merrily. 
The  lights  sparkle  along  the  wall  or  drop  from  the  ceiling 
— a  cohort  of  fire?  The  music  charms.  The  diamonds 
glitter.  The  feet  bound.  Gemmed  hands  stretched  out 
clasp  gemmed  hands.  Dancing  feet  respond  to  dancing 
feet.  Gleaming  brow  bends  to  gleaming  brow.  On 
with  the  dance!  Flash  and  rustle  and  laughter  and  im- 
measurable merry  making!  But  the  languor  of  death 
comes  over  the  limbs  and  blurs  the  sight! 

Lights  lower!  Floor  hollow  with  sepulchral  echo. 
Music  saddens  into  a  wail.  Lights  lower!  The  maskers 
can  hardly  now  be  seen.  Flowers  exchange  their  fra- 
grance for  a  sickening  odor,  such  as  comes  from  garlands 
that  have  lain  in  vaults  of  cemeteries.  Lights  lower! 
Mists  fill  the  room.  Glasses  rattle  as  though  shaken  by 
sullen  thunder.  Sighs  seem  caught  among  the  curtains. 
Scarfs  fall  from  the  shoulder  of  beauty — a  shroud! 
Lights  lower!  Over  the  slippery  boards,  in  dance  of 
death,  glide  jealousies,  disappointments,  lust,  despair. 
Torn  leaves  and  withered  garlands  only  half  hide  the 
ulcered  feet.  The  stench  of  smoking  lamp  wicks  almost 
quenched.  Choking  damps.  Chilliness.  Feet  still. 
Hands  folded.      Eyes  shut.     Voices  hushed.      Lights  out. 


THE  PLAGUE    OF  INFIDELITY. 


v 


'Let  God  be  true,  but  every  man   a  liar."     Romans  iii,  4. 

Iff  hat  is  if  God  says  one  thing  and  the  whole  hu- 
man race  says  the  opposite,  Paul  would  accept 
the  Divine  veracity.      But  there  are  many  in  our 

time  who  have  dared  arraign  the  Almighty  for  falsehood. 

Infidelity  is   not  only  a  plague,    but  it    is  the    mother  ot 

plagues. 

A  LONG   SENTENCE  OF  STRANGE  INFIDEL  ASSERTIONS. 

It  seems  from  what  we  hear  on  all  sides  that  the 
Christian  religion  is  a  huge  blunder;  that  the  Mosaic  ac- 
count of  the  creation  is  an  absurdity  large  enough  to 
throw  all  nations  into  rollicking  guffaw;  that  Adam  and 
Eve  never  existed;  that  the  ancient  flood  and  Noah's 
ark  were  impossibilities;  that  there  never  was  a  miracle; 
that  the  Bible  is  the  friend  of  cruelty,  of  murder,  of 
polygamy,  of  all  forms  of  base  crime;  that  the  Christian 
religion  is  woman's  tyrant  and  man's  stultification;  that 
the  Bible  from  lid  to  lid  is  a  fable,  a  cruelty,  a  humbug, 
a  sham,  a  lie;  that  the  martyrs  who  died  for  its  truth 
were  miserable  dupes;  that  the  church  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
properly  gazetted  as  a  fool;  that  when  Thomas  Carlyle, 
the  skeptic,  said,  "The  Bible  is  a  noble  book,"  he  was 
dropping  into  imbecility;  that  when  Theodore  Parker  de- 
clared in  Music  Hall,  Boston,  "Never  a  boy  or  girl  in  all 
Christendom  but  was  profited  by  that  great  book,"  he  was 
becoming  very  weak  minded;  that  it  is  something  to  bring 

[92] 


PLAGUE  OF  INFIDELITY.  93 

a  blush  to  the  cheek  of  every  patriot,  that  John  Adams, 
the  father  of  American  Independence,  declared,  "The 
Bible  is  the  best  book  in  all  the  world;"  and  that  lion 
hearted  Andrew  Jackson  turned  into  a  sniveling  coward 
when  he  said,  "That  book,  sir,  is  the  rock  on  which  our 
republic  rests;"  and  that  Daniel  Webster  abdicated  the 
throne  of  his  intellectual  power  and  resigned  his  logic, 
and  from  being  the  great  expounder  of  the  constitution, 
and  the  great  lawyer  of  his  age,  turned  into  an  idiot 
when  he  said,  "My  heart  assures  and  reassures  me  that 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  must  be  a  divine  reality. 
From  the  time  that  at  my  mother's  feet  or  on  my  father's 
knee  I  first  learned  to  lisp  verses  from  the  sacred  writings 
they  have  been  my  daily  study  and  vigilant  contempla- 
tion, and  if  there  is  anything  in  my  style  or  thought  to 
be  commended,  the  credit  is  due  to  my  kind  parents  in 
instilling  into  my  mind  an  early  love  of  the  Scriptures;' 
and  that  William  H.  Seward,  the  diplomatist  of  the  cen- 
tury, only  showed  his  puerility  when  he  declared,  '  'The 
whole  hope  of  human  progress  is  suspended  on  that  ever 
growing  influence  of  the  Bible;"  and  that  it  is  wisest 
for  us  to  take  that  book  from  the  throne  in  the  affections 
of  uncounted  multitudes  and  put  it  under  our  feet,  to  be 
trampled  upon  by  hatred  and  hissing  contempt;  and  that 
your  old  father  was  hoodwinked,  and  cajoled,  and  cheated 
and  befooled,  when  he  leaned  on  this  as  a  staff  after  his  hair 
grew  gray,  and  his  hands  were  tremulous,  and  his  steps 
shortened  as  he  came  up  to  the  verge  of  the  grave;  and 
that  your  mother  sat  with  a  pack  of  lies  on  her  lap  while 
reading  of  the  better  country,  and  of  the  ending  of  all 
her  aches  and  pains,  and  reunion,  not  only  with   those  of 


94  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

you  who  stood  around  her,  but  with  the  children  she  had 
buried  with  infinite  heartache,  so  shat  she  could  read  no 
more  until  she  took  off  her  spectacles  and  wiped  from 
them  the  heavy  mist  of  many  tears.  Alas!  that  for  forty 
and  fifty  years  they  should  have  walked  under  this  delu- 
sion and  had  it  under  their  pillow  when  they  lay  a-dying 
in  the  back  room,  and  asked  that  some  words  from  the 
vile  page  might  be  cut  upon  the  tombstone  under  the 
shadow  of  the  old  country  meeting  house  where  they 
sleep  to-day,  waiting  for  a  resurrection  that  will  never 
come. 

infidelity's  proposition. 

This  book,  having  deceived  them,  and  having  deceived 
the  mighty  intellects  of  the  past,  must  not  be  allowed  to 
deceive  our  larger,  mightier,  vaster,  more  stupendous  in- 
tellects. And  so  out  with  the  book  from  the  court  room, 
where  it  is  used  in  the  solemnization  of  testimony.  Out 
with  it  from  under  the  foundation  of  church  and  asylum. 
Out  with  it  trom  the  domestic  circle.  Gather  together 
all  the  Bibles —  the  children's  Bibles,  the  family  Bibles, 
those  newly  bound,  and  those  with  lid  nearly  worn  out 
and  pages  almost  obliterated  by  the  fingers  long  ago  turn- 
ed to  dust — bring  them  all  together,  and  let  us  make  a 
bonfire  of  them,  and  by  it  warm  our  cold  criticism,  and 
after  that  turn  under  with  the  plowshare  of  public  indig- 
nation the  polluted  ashes  of  that  loathsome,  adulterous, 
obscene,  cruel  and  deathful  book  which  is  so  antagonistic 
to  man's  liberty,  and  woman's  honor,  and  the  world's 
happiness. 

ITS  DEATHFUL  LAUGHTER. 

Now  that  is  the  substance  of  what  infidelity    prop 


PLAGUE    OF    INFIDELITY.  95 

and  declares,  and  the  attack  on  the  Bible  is  accompanied 
by  great  jocosity,  and  there  is  hardly  any  subject  about 
which  more  mirth  is  kindled  than  about  the  Bible.  I 
like  fun;  no  man  was  ever  built  with  a  keener  apprecia- 
tion of  it.  There  is  health  in  laughter  instead  of  harm 
— physical  health,  mental  health,  moral  health,  spiritual 
health — providing  you  laugh  at  the  right  thing.  The 
morning  is  jocund.  The  Indian,  with  its  own  mist  bap- 
tizes the  cataract  Minnehaha,  or  Laughing  Water.  You 
have  not  kept  your  eyes  open  or  your  ears  alert  if  you 
have  not  seen  the  sea  smile,  or  heard  the  forests  clap 
their  hands,  or  the  orchards  in  blossom  week  aglee  with 
redolence.  But  there  is  a  laughter  which  is  deathful, 
there  is  a  laughter  which  has  the  rebound  of  despair.  It 
is  not  healthy  to  giggle  about  God,  or  chuckle  about 
eternity,  or  smirk  about  the  things  of  the  immortal  soul. 

STOPPING     THE    TRAIN. 

You  know  what  caused  the  accident  years  ago  on  the 
Hudson  River  railroad.  It  was  an  intoxicatad  man  who 
for  a  joke  pulled  the  string  of  the  air  brake  and  stopped 
the  train  at  the  most  dangerous  point  of  the  journey. 
But  the  lightning  train,  not  knowing  there  was  any  im- 
pediment in  the  way,  came  down,  crushing  out  of  the 
mangled  victims  the  immortal  souls  that  went  speeding 
instantly  to  God  and  judgment.  It  was  only  a  joke. 
He  thought  it  would  be  fun  to  stop  the  train.  He  stopped 
it.  And  so  infidelity  is  chiefly  anxious  to  stop  the  long 
train  of  the  Bible,  and  the  long  train  of  the  churches, 
and  the  long  train  of  the  Christian  influences,  while 
coming  down  upon  us  are  death,  judgment  and  eternity, 
coming  a   thousand    miles  a    minute,  coming   with  more 


g6  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

force  than  all  the  avalanches  that  ever  slipped  from  the 
Alps,  coming  with  more  strength  than  all  the  lightning 
express  trains  that  ever  whistled  or  shrieked  or  thundered 
across  the  continent. 

Now  in  this  jocularity  of  infidel  thinkers  I  cannot  join, 
and  I  propose  to  give  you  some  reasons  why  I  cannot  be 
an  infidel,  and  so  I  will  try  to  help  out  of  this  present 
condition  any  who  may  have  been  struck  with  the  awful 
plague  of  skepticism. 

WHY  I  CANNOT   BE  AN  INFIDEL. 

First,  I  cannot  be  an  infidel  because  infidelity  has  no 
good  substitute  for  the  consolation  it  proposes  to  take 
away.  You  know  there  are  millions  of  people  who  get 
their  chief  consolation  from  this  book.  What  would  you 
think  of  a  crusade  of  this  sort?  Suppose  a  man  should 
resolve  that  he  would  organize  a  conspiracy  to  destroy 
all  the  medicines  from  all  the  apothecaries  and  from  all 
the  hospitals  of  the  earth  The  work  is  done.  The 
medicines  are  taken,  and  they  are  thrown  into  the  river, 
or  the  lake,  or  the  sea. 

A  patient  wakes  up  at  midnight  in  a  paroxysm  of  dis- 
tress, and  wants  an  anodyne.  'Oh."  says  the  nurse, 
"%the  anodynes  are  all  destroyed;  we  have  no  drops  to 
give  you,  but  instead  of  that  I'll  read  you  a  book  on  the 
absurdities  of  morphine  and  on  the  absurdities  of  all 
remedies."  But  the  man  continues  to  writhe  in  pain, 
and  the  nurse  says:  "I'll  continue  to  read  some  discourses 
on  anodynes,  the  crudities  of  anodynes,  the  indecencies 
of  anodynes,  the  absurdities  of  anodynes.  For  your 
groan  I'll  give  you  a  laugh." 

Here  in  the  hospital  is  a  patient   having  a   gangrened 


PLAGUE  OF  INFIDELITY.  97 

limb  amputated.  He  says:  "Oh,  for  ether!  Oh,  for 
chloroform!"  The  doctor  says:  "Why,  they  are  all  des- 
troyed; we  don't  have  any  more  chloroform  or  ether,  but 
I  have  got  something  a  great  deal  better.  I'll  read  you 
a  pamphlet  against  James  Y.  Simpson,  the  discoverer  of 
chloroform  as  an  anaesthetic,  and  against  Drs.  Agnew 
and  Hamilton  and  Hosack  and  Mott  and  Harvey  and 
Abernethy."  "But,"  says  the  man,  "I  must  have  some 
anaesthetics."  "No,"  says  the  doctor,  "they  are  all 
destroyed,  but  we  have  got  something  a  great  deal  better.'' 
"What  is  that?"  "Fun"'  Fun.  about  medicines.  Lie 
down,  all  ye  patients  in  Bellevue  hospital,  and  stop  your 
groaning;  all  ye  broken  hearted  of  all  the  cities,  and  quit 
your  crying;  we  have  the  catholicon  at  last! 

Here  is  a  dose  of  wit,  here  is  a  strengthening  plaster 
of  sarcasm,  here  is  a  bottle  ef  ribaldry  that  you  are  to 
keep  well  shaken  up  and  take  a  spoonful  of  it  after  each 
meal,  and  if  that  does  not  cure  you  here  is  a  solution  of 
blasphemy  in  which  you  may  bathe,  and  here  is  a  tinc- 
ture of  derision.  Tickle  the  skeleton  of  death  with  a 
repartee!  Make  the  Kings  of  Terror  cackle!.  For  all  the 
agonies  of  all  the  ages  a  joke!  Millions  of  people  willing 
with  uplifted  hand  toward  heaven  to  affirm  that  the  gos- 
pel of  Jesus  Christ  is  full  of  consolation  for  them,  and  yet 
infidelity  proposes  to  take  it  away,  giving  nothing  abso- 
lutely nothing,  except  fun.  Is  there  any  greater  height 
or  depth  or  length  or  breadth  or  immensity  of  meanness 
in  all  God's   universe? 

"don't  knows"  of  infidelity! 

Infidelity  is  a  religion  of  "Don't  knows."  Is  there  a 
God?     Don't  know!     Is  the  soul  immortal?    Don't  know! 


98  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

If  we  shonld  meet  each  other  in  the  future  world  will  we 
recognize  each  other?  Don't  know!  A  religion  of  "don't 
knows"  for  the  religion  of  "I  know,"  "I  know  in  whom  I 
have  believed,"  "I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth. " 
Infidelity  proposes  to  substitute  a  religion  of  awful  nega- 
tives for  our  religion  of  glorious  positives,  showing  right 
before  us  a  world  of  reunion  and  ecstacy  and  high  com- 
panionship and  glorious  worship  and  stupendous  victory, 
the  mightiest  joy  of  earth  not  high  enough  to  reach  to 
the  base  of  the  Himalaya  of  uplifted  splendor  awaiting 
all  those  who  on  wing  of  Christian  faith  willl  soar  to- 
ward it. 

PUTTING  OUT  ALL  THE  LIGHT  HOUSES! 

Have  you  heard  of  the  conspiracy  to  put  out  all  the 
lighthouses  on  the  coast?  Do  you  know  that  on  a  certain 
night  of  next  month,  Eddystone  lighthouse,  Bell  Rock 
lighthouse,  Sherryvore  lighthouse,  Montauk  lighthouse, 
Hatteras  lighthouse,  New  London  lighthouse,  Barnegat 
lighthouse,  and  the  640  lighthouses  on  the  Atlantic  and 
Pacific  coasts  are  to  be  extinguished?  "Oh,"  you  say, 
"what  will  become  of  the  ships  on  that  night?  What 
will  be  the  fate  of  the  one  million  sailors  following  the 
sea?  What  will  be  the  doom  of  the  millions  of  passen- 
gers? Who  will  arise  to  put  down  such  a  conspiracy?" 
Every  man,  woman  and  child  in  America  and  the  world. 
But  that  is  only  a  fable.  That  is  what  infiedlity  is  trying 
to  do — put  out  all  the  lighthouses  on  the  coast  of  eternity, 
letting  the  soul  go  up  the  "Narrows"  of  death  with  no 
light,  no  comfort,  no  peace — all  that  coast  covered  with 
the  blackness  of  darkness.  Instead  of  the  great  light- 
house,    a  glowworm  ol  wit,  a  firefly  of  jocosity.      Which 


i 


PLAGUE  OF  INFIDELITY.  99 

do  you  like  the  better,  O  voyager  for  eternity,  the  firefly  or 
the  lighthouse? 

THE  AWFUL    MISSION    OF    INFIDELITY. 

What  a  mission  infidelity  has  started  on!  The  ex- 
tinguishment of  lighthouses,  the  breaking  up  of  lifeboats, 
the  dismissal  of  all  the  pilots,  the  turning  of  the  inscrip- 
tion on  your  child's  grave  into  a  farce  and  a  lie.  Walter 
Scott's  "Old  Mortality,"  chisel  in  hand,  went  through 
the  land  to  cut  out  into  plainer  letters  the  half  obliterated 
inscriptions  on  the  tombstones,  and  it  was  a  beautiful 
mission;  but  infidelity  spends  its  time  with  hammer  and 
chisel  trying  to  cut  out  from  the  tombstones  of  your  dead 
all  the  story  of  resurrection  and  heaven.  It  is  the  icon- 
oclast of  every  village  graveyard  and  of  every  city  ceme- 
ter)  and  of  Westminster  Abbey.  Instead  of  Christian 
consolation  for  the  dying,  a  freezing  sneer.  Instead  of 
prayer  a  grimace.  Instead  of  Paul's  triumphant  defiance 
of  death,  a  going  out  you  know  not  where,  to  stop  you 
know  not  when,  to  do  you  know  not  what.  That  is  in- 
fidelity. 

FALSE  CHARGES  OF  INFIDELITY. 

Furthermore:  I  cannot  be  an  infidel,  because  of  the 
false  charges  infidelity  is  all  the  time  making  against  the 
Bible.  Perhaps  the  slander  that  has  made  the  most  im- 
pression and  that  some  Christians  have  not  been  intelli- 
gent enough  to  deny  is  that  the  Bible  favors  polygamy. 
Does  the  God  of  the  Bible  uphold  polygamy,  or  did  He? 
How  many  wives  did  God  make  for  Adam?  He  made 
one  wife.  Does  not  your  common  sense  tell  you  when 
God  started  the  marriage  institution  He  started  it  as  He 
wanted  it  to  continue.      If  God  had  favored  polygamy  he 


100  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

could  have  created  for  Adam  five  wives  or  ten  wives  or 
twenty  wives  just  as  easily  as  he  made  one. 

At  the  very  first  of  the  Bible,  God  shows  himself  in 
favor  of  monogamy  and  antagonistic  to  polygamy.  Gen- 
esis ii,  24,  ''Therefore  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and 
mother,  and  shall  cleave  unto  his  wife."  Not  his  wives, 
but  his  wife.  How  many  wives  did  God  spare  for  Noah 
in  the  ark?  Two  and  two  the  birds;  two  and  two  the 
cattle;  two  and  two  the  lions;  two  and  two  the  human 
race.  If  the  God  of  the  Bible  had  favored  a  multiplicity 
of  wives  he  would  have  spared  the  plurality  of  wives. 
When  God  first  launched  the  human  race  he  gave  Adam 
one  wife.  At  the  second  launching  of  the  human  race  he 
spares  for  Noah  one  wife,  for  Ham  one  wife,  forShem 
one  wife,  for  Japheth  one  wife!  Does  that  look  as  though 
God  favored  polygamy?  In  Leviticus  xviii,  18,  God 
thunders  his  prohibition  of  more  than    one  wife. 

God  permitted  Polygamy.  Yes;  just  as  he  permits  to- 
day's murder  and  theft  and  arson  and  all  kinds  of  crime. 
He  permits  these  things  as  you  well  know,  but  he  does 
not  sanction  them.  Who  would  dare  to  say  he  sanctions 
them?  Because  the  Presidents  of  the  United  States  have 
permitted  polygamy  in  Utah,  you  are  not,  therefore,  to 
conclude  that  they  patronized  it,  they  denounced  it.  All 
of  God's  ancient  Israel  knew  that  the  God  of  the  Bible 
was  against  polygamy,  for  in  the  four  hundred  and  thirty 
years  of  their  stay  in  Egypt  their  is  only  one  case  of 
polygamy  recorded — only  one.  All  the  mighty  men  of 
the  Bible  stood  aloof  from  polygamy  except  those  who, 
falling  into  the  crime,  were  chastised  within  an  inch  of 
their  lives.    Adam,  Aaron,  Noah,  Joseph,  Joshua,  Samuel, 


PLAGUE  OF  INFIDELITY.  IOI 

monogamists.  But  you  say,  "Didn't  David  and  Solomon 
favor  polygamy?"  Yes;  and  did  they  not  get  well  punish- 
ed for  it? 

DAVID  AND  SOLOMON    PUNISHED    FOR  SINS. 

Read  the  lives  of  these  two  men  and  you  will  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  all  the  attributes  of  God's  nature  were 
against  their  behavior.  David  suffered  for  his  crimes  in 
the  caverns  of  Adullam  and  Makkedah,  in  the  wilderness  of 
Mahanaim,  in  the  bereavement  of  Ziklag.  The  Bedouins 
after  him,  sickness  after  him,  Absalom  after  him,  Ahitho- 
pel  after  him,  Adonijah  after  him,  the  Edomites  after 
him,  the  Syrians  after  him,  the  Moabites  after  him,  death 
after  him,  the  Lord  God  Almighty  after  him.  The 
poorest  peasant  in  all  the  empire  married  to  the  plainest 
Jewess  was  happier  than  the  king  in  his  marital  misbe- 
havior. How  did  Solomon  get  along  with  his  polygamy? 
Read  his  warnings  in  Proverbs;  read  his  self  disgust  in 
Ecclesiastes.  He  throws  up  his  hands  in  loathing  and 
cries  out,  "Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity. "  His  seven 
hundred  wives  nearly  pestered  the  life  out  of  him.  Solo- 
mon got  well  paid  for  his  crimes — well  paid. 

I  repeat  that  all  the  mighty  men  of  the  Scriptures 
were  aloof  from  polygamy,  save  as  they  were  pounded 
and  flailed  and  cut  to  pieces  for  their  insult  to  holy  mar- 
riage. If  the  Bible  is  the  friend  of  polygamy  why  is  it 
that  in  all  the  lands  where  the  Bible  predominates  poly- 
gamy is  forbidden,  and  in  the  lands  where  there  is  no 
Bible,  it  is  favored?  Polygamy  all  over  China,  all  over 
India,  all  over  Africa,  all  over  Persia,  all  over  heathen- 
dom, save  as  the  missionaries  have  done  their  work, 
while  polygamy  does  not  exist  in  England  and  the  United 


102  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

States  except  in  defiance  of  law.  The  Bible  abroad,  God 
honored  monogamy.  The  Bible  not  abroad,  God  ab- 
horred polygamy. 

THE  GLORY  OF    CHRISTIAN  WOMANHOOD. 

Another  false  charge  which  infidelity  has  made  against 
the  Bible  is  that  it  is  antagonistic  to  woman,  that  it  en- 
joins her  degradation  and  belittles  her  mission.  Under 
this  impression  many  women  have  been  overcome  of  this 
plague  of  infidelity.        Is  the  Bible  the  enemy  of  woman? 

A  BIBLE   PICTURE  GALLERY. 

Come  into  the  picture  gallery,  the  Louvre,  the  Luxem- 
bourg of  the  Bible,  and  see  which  pictures  are  the  more 
honored. 

Here  is  Eve,  a  perfect  woman;  as  perfect  a  woman  as 
could  be  made  by  a  perfect  God. 

Here  is  Deborah,  with  her  womanly  arm  hurling  a  host 
into  battle. 

Here  is  Miriam,  leading  the  Israelitish  orchestra  on  the 
banks    of  the  Red  sea. 

Here  is  motherly  Hannah,  with  her  own  loving  hand 
replenishing  the  wardrobe  of  her  son  Samuel  the  prophet. 

Here  is  Abigail,  kneeling  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain 
until  the  four  hundred  wrathful  men,  at  the  sight  of  her 
beauty  and  prowess  halt,  halt — a  hurricane  stopped  at 
the  sight  of  a  water  lily,  a  dew  drop  dashing  back 
Niagara. 

Here  is  Ruth  putting  to  shame  all  the  modern  slang 
about  mothers-in-law  as  she  turns  her  back  on  her  home 
and  her  country,  and  faces  wild  beasts  and  exile  and 
death  that  she  may  be  with  Naomi,  her  husbands  mother. 
Ruth,  the  queen  of  the  harvest  fields.      Ruth,   the  grand- 


PLAGUE  OF  INFIDELITY.  103 

mother  of  David.  Ruth,  the  ancestress  of  Jesus  Christ. 
The  story  of  her  virtues  and  her  life  sacrificed  is  the  most 
beautiful  pastoral  ever  written. 

Here  is  Vashti  defying  the  bacchanal  of  a  thousand 
drunken  lords,  and  Esther  willing  to  throw  her  life  away 
that  she  may  deliver  her  people. 

And  here  is  Dorcas,  the  sunlight  of  eternal  fame  gilding 
her  philanthropic  needle,  and  the  woman  with  perfume  in 
a  box  made  from  the  hills  of  Alabastron,  pouring  the  holy 
chrism  on  the  head  of  Christ,  the  aroma  lingering  all 
down  the  corridor  of  the  centuries. 

Here  is  Lydia,  the  merchantess  of  Tyrian  purple  im- 
mortalized for  her  Christian  behavior. 

Here  is  the  widow  with  two  mites,  more  famous  than 
the  Peabodys  and  the  Lenoxes  of  all  the  ages,  while  here 
comes  in  slow  of  gait  and  with  careful  attendants  and 
with  especial  honor  and  high  favor,  leaning  on  the  arm 
of  inspiration,  one  who  is  the  joy  and  pride  of  any  home 
so  rarely  fortunate  as  to  have  one,  an  old  Christian 
grandmother,  Grandmother  Lois.  Who  has  more  wor- 
shipers to-day  than  any  being  that  ever  lived  on  earth 
except  Jesus  Christ?     Mary. 

For  what  purpose  did  Christ  perform  His  first  miracle 
upon  earth?  To  relieve  the  embarrassment  of  a  woman- 
ly housekeeper  at  the  falling  short  of  a  beverage.  Why 
did  Christ  break  up  the  silence  of  the  tomb,  and  tear  off 
the  shroud,  and  rip  up  the  rocks?  It  was  to  stop  the 
bereavement  of  the  two  Bethany  sisters.  For  whose 
comfort  was  Christ  most  anxious  in  the  hour  of  dying 
excruciation?  For  a  woman,  an  old  woman,  a  wrinkle 
faced  woman,  a  woman  who  in  other  days  had    held  him 


104  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

in  her  arms,  his  first  friend,  his  last  friend,  as  it  is  very 
apt  to  be,  his  mother.  All  the  pathos  of  the  ages  com- 
pressed into  one  utterance,  ' 'Behold  thy  mother."  Does 
the  Bible  antagonize  woman? 

A    CALL    FOR  THE    WITNESSES. 

If  the  Bible  is  so  antagonistic  to  woman,  how  do  you 
account  for  the  difference  in  woman's  condition  in  China 
and  Central  Africa,  and  her  condition  in  England  and 
America?  There  is  no  difference  except  that  which  the 
Bible  makes.  In  lands  where  there  is  no  Bible  she  is 
hitched  like  a  beast  of  burden  to  the  plows,  she  carries 
the  hod,  she  submits  to  indescribable  indignities.  She 
must  be  kept  in  a  private  apartment,  and  if  she  come 
forth  she  must  be  carefully  hooded  and  religiously  veiled 
as  though  it  were  a  shame  to  be  a  woman.  Do  you  not 
know  that  the  very  first  thing  that  the  Bible. does  when 
it  comes  into  a  new  country  is  to  strike  off  the  shackles 
of  woman's  serfdom?  O  woman,  where  are  your  chains 
to-day?  Hold  up  both  your  arms  and  let  us  see  your 
handcuffs.  Oh,  we  see  the  handcuffs.  They  are  brace- 
lets of  gold  bestowed  by  husbandly  or  fatherly  or  brother- 
ly or  sisterly  or  loverly  affection.  Unloosen  the  warm 
robe  from  your  neck,  O  woman,  and  let  us  see  the  yoke 
of  your  bondage.  Oh,  I  find  the  yoke  a  carcanet  of  sil- 
ver, or  a  string  of  carnelians,  or  a  cluster  of  pearls,  that 
must  gall  you  very  much.      How  bad  you  must  all  have  it. 

Since  you  put  the  Bible  on  your  stand  in  the  sitting 
room,  has  the  Bible  been  to  you,  O  woman,  a  curse  or  a 
blessing?  Why  is  it  that  a  woman  when  she  is  troubled 
will  go  to  her  worst  enemy,  the  Bible?  Why  do  you  not 
go  for  comfort  to  some    of  the  great    infidel  books,  Spin- 


PLAGUE  OF  INFIDELITY.  105 

oza's  "Ethics,"  or  Hume's  ''Natural  History  of  Religion," 
or  Paine's  "Age  of  Reason,"  or  Dcdro's  Dramas,  or  &ny 
one  of  the  260  volumes  of  Voltaire?  No,  the  silly,  de- 
luded woman  persists  in  hanging  about  the  Bible  verses, 
"Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled,"  "All  things  work  to- 
gether for  good,"  "Weeping  may  endure  for  a  night,"  "I 
am  the  resurrection,"   "Peace,  be  still." 

INFIDELITY  DOES    NO  GOOD  FOR  THE  WORLD. 

Furthermore,,  rather  than  invite  I  resist  this  plague  of 
infidelity  because  it  has  wrought  no  positive  good  for  the 
world  and  is  always  a  hindrance.  I  ask  you  to  mention 
the  names  of  the  merciful  and  the  educational  institu- 
tion which  infidelity  founded  and  is  supporting,  and  has 
supported  all  the  way  through — institutions  pronounced 
against  God  and  the  Christian  religion,  and  yet  pro- 
nounced in  behalf  of  suffering  humanity.  What  are  the 
names  of  them?  Certainly  not  the  United  States  Chris- 
tian commission  or  the  sanitary  commission,  for  Christian 
George  H.  Stuart  was  the  president  of  the  one,  and 
Christian  Henry  W.  Bellows  was  the  president  of  the 
other. 

Where  are  the  asylums  and  merciful  institutions  found- 
ed by  infidelity  and  supported  by  infidelity,  pronounced 
against  God  and  the  Bible,  and  yet  doing  work  for  the 
alleviation  of  suffering?  Infidelity  is  so  very  loud  in  its 
braggadocio  it  must  have  some  to  mention.  Certainly, 
if  you  come  to  speak  of  educational  institutions  it  is  not 
Yale,  it  is  not  Harvard,  it  is  not  Princeton,  it  is  not 
Middletown,  it  is  not  Cambridge  or  Oxford,  it  is  not  any 
institution  from  which  a  diploma  would  not  be  a  disgrace. 
Do  you  point  to  the  German  universities  as    exceptions? 


106  EVILS   OF  THE   CITIES. 

I  have  to  tell  you  that  all  the  German  universities  to-day- 
are  under  positive  Christian  influences,  except  the  Uni- 
versity of  Heidelberg,  where  the  ruffianly  students  cut 
and  maul  and  mangle  and  murder  each  other  as  a  matter 
of  pride  instead  of  infamy.  Do  you  mention  Girard 
college,  Philadelphia,  as  an  exception,  that  college  estab- 
lished by  the  will  of  Mr.  Girard  which  forbade  religious 
instruction  and  the  entrance  of  clergymen  within  its 
gates?  My  reply  is  that  I  lived  for  seven  years  near  that 
college  and  knew  many  of  its  professors  to  be  Christian 
instructors,  and  no  better  Christian  influences  are  to  be 
found  in  any  college  than  in  Girard  college. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND    INFIDELITY  COMPARED. 

There  stands  Christianity.  There  stands  infidelity. 
Compare  what  they  have  done.  Compare  their  resources. 
There  is  Christianity,  a  prayer  on  her  lip;  a  benediction 
on  her  brow;  both  hands  full  of  help  for  all  who  want 
help;  the  mother  of  thousands  of  colleges;  the  mother  of 
thousands  of  asylums  for  the  oppressed,  the  blind,  the 
sick,  the  lame,  the  imbecile;  the  mother  of  missions  for 
the  bringing  back  of  the  outcast;  the  mother  of  thousands 
of  reformatory  institutions  for  the  saving  of  the  lost;  the 
mother  of  innumerable  Sabbath  schools  bringing  millions 
of  children  under  a  drill  to  prepare  them  for  respectability 
and  usefulness,  to  say  nothing  of  the  great  future.  That 
is  Christianity. 

Here  is  infidelity;  no  prayer  on  her  lips,  no  benedic- 
tion on  her  brow,  both  hands  clenched — what  for?  To 
fight  Christianity.  That  is  the  entire  business.  The 
complete  mission  ot  infidelity  to  fight  Christianity. 
Where  are  her  schools,  her  colleges,  her  asylums  of  mercy? 


PLAGUE  OF  INFIDELITY.  107 

Let  me  throw  you  down  a  whole  ream  of  foolscap  paper 
that  yon  may  fill  all  of  it  with  the  names  of  her  benefi- 
cent institutions,  the  colleges,  and  the  asylums,  the  insti- 
tutions of  mercy  and  of  learning,  founded  by  infidelity 
and  supported  alone  by  infidelity,  pronounced  against 
God  and  the  Christian  religion,  and  yet  in  favor  of  mak- 
ing the  world  better. 

'•Oh,"  you  say,  "a  ream  of  paper  is  to  much  for  the 
names  of  those  institutions." 

Well,  then,  I  throw  you  a  quire  of  paper.  Fill  it  all  up 
now.      I  will  wait  until   you  get  all  the  names  down. 

''Oh,"  you  say,   "that  is  too  much." 

Well,  then,  I  will  just  hand  you  a  sheet  of  letter  paper. 
Just  fill  up  the  four  sides  while  we  are  talking  of  this 
matter  with  the  names  of  the  merciful  institutions  and 
the  educational  institutions  founded  by  infidelity  and 
supported  all  along  by  infidelity,  pronounced  against  God 
and  the  Christian  religion,  yet  in  favor  of  humanity. 

"Oh,"  you  say,  "that  is  too  much  room.  We  don't 
want  a  whole  sheet  of  paper   to  write  down  the  names." 

Perhaps  I  had  better  tear  out  one  leaf  from  my  mem- 
orandum book  and  ask  you  to  fill  up  both  sides  of  it  with 
the  names  of  such  institutions. 

"Oh,"  you  say,  "That  would  be  too  much  room.  I 
wouldn't  want  so  much  room  as  that." 

Well,  then,  suppose  you  count  them  on  your  ten 
fingers. 

"Oh,"  you  say,  "not  quite  so  much  as  that." 

Well,  then,  count  them  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand. 

"Oh,"  you  say,  "we  don't  want  quite  so  much  room 
as  that." 


108  EVILS  OF  THE  CITfES. 

Suppose,  then,  you  halt  and  count  on  one  finger  the 
name  of  any  institution  founded  by  infidelity,  supported 
entirely  by  infidelity,  pronounced  against  God  and  the 
Christian  religion,  yet  toiling  to  make  the  world  better. 
Not  one!  Not  one! 

ALAS,   FOR   THE  MEANNESS  OF  INFIDELITY! 

Is  infidelity  so  poor,  so  starveling,  so  mean,  so  useless? 
Get  out,  you  miserable  pauper  of  the  universe!  Crawl 
into  some  rathole  of  everlasting  nothingness.  Infidelity 
standing  to-day  amid  the  suffering,  groaning,  dying  na- 
tions, and  yet  doing  absolutely  nothing  save,  trying  to 
impede  those  who  are  toiling  until  they  fall  exhausted 
into  their  graves  in  trying  to  make  the  world  better. 

Gather  up  all  the  work,  all  the  merciful  work,  that 
infidelity  has  ever  done,  add  it  all  together,  and  there  is 
not  so  much  nobility  in  it  as  in  the  smallest  bead  of  that 
sister  of  charity  who  last  night  went  up  the  dark  alley  of 
the  town,  put  a  jar  of  jelly  for  an  invalid  appetite  on  a 
broken  stand,  and  then  knelt  on  the  bare  floor  praying 
the  mercy  of  Christ  upon  the  dying  soul. 

Infidelity  scrapes  no  lint  for  the  wounded,  bakes  no 
bread  for  the  hungry,  shakes  up  no  pillow  for  the  sick, 
rouses  no  comfort  for  the  bereft,  gilds  no  grave  for  the 
dead. 

THANKS  FOR    THE    GOODNESS  OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

While  Christ,  our  Christ,  our  wounded  Christ,  our 
risen  Christ,  the  Christ  of  this  old  fashioned  Bible — 
blessed  be  his  glorious  name  forever!  our  Christ  stands 
this  hour  pointing  to  the  hospital,  or  to  the  asylum,  say- 
ing: "I  was  sick  and  ye  gave  me  a  couch,  I  was  lame  and 
ye  gave  me  a  crutch,  I  was  blind  and  ye  physicianed  my 


PLAGUE  OF  INFIDELITY.  IOQ 

eyesight,  I  was  orphaned  and  ye  mothered  my  soul,  I 
was  lost  on  the  mountains  and  ye  brought  me  home;  in- 
asmuch as  ye  did  it  to  one  of  the  least  of  these,  ye  did  it 
to  me. " 

But  I  thank  God  that  this  plague  of  infidelity  will  be 
stayed.  Many  of  those  who  hear  me  now  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  upon  their  hearts  will  cease  to  be  scoffers  and  will 
become  disciples,  and  the  day  will  arrive  when  all  na- 
tions will  accept  the  Scriptures.  The  book  is  going  to 
keep  right  on  until  the  fires  of  the  last  day  are  kindled. 
Some  of  them  will  begin  on  one  side  and  some  on  the 
other  side  of  the  old  book.  They  will  not  find  a  bundle 
of  loose  manuscripts  easily  consumed  like  tinder  thrown 
into  the  fire.  When  the  fires  of  the  last  day  are  kindled, 
some  will  burn  on  this  side,  from  Genesis  toward  Revela- 
tion, and  others  will  burn  on  this  side,  from  Revelation 
toward  Genesis,  and  in  all  their  way,  they  will  not  find  a 
single  chapter  or  a  single  verse,  out  of  place.  That  will 
be  the  first  time  we  can  afford  to  do  without  the  Bible. 

What  will  be  the  use  of  the  book  of  Genesis,  descrip- 
tive of  how  the  world  was  made,  when  the  world  is  de- 
troyed?  What  will  be  the  use  of  the  prophecies  when 
they  are  fulfilled?  What  will  be  the  use  of  the  evange- 
listic or  Pauline  description  of  Jesus  Christ  when  we  see 
him  face  to  face?  What  will  be  the  use  of  his  photograph 
when  we  have  met  him  in  glory?  What  will  be  the  use 
of  the  book  of  Revelation,  standing  as  you  will  with  your 
foot  on  the  glassy  sea,  and  your  hand  on  the  ringing 
harp,  and  your  forhead  chapleted  with  eternal  coronation, 
amid  the  amethystine  and  twelve  gated  glories  of  heaven? 
The  emerald  dashing  its  green  against  the  beryl,    and  the 


no 


EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 


beryl  dashing-  its  blue  against  the  sapphire,  and  the 
sapphire  throwing  its  light  on  the  jacinth,  and  the  jacinth 
dashing  its  fire  against  the  chrysoprasus,  and  you  and  I 
standing  in  the  glories  of  ten  thousand  sunsets. 


I  AM    GUILTY". 


THE    PLAGUE  OF  CRIME. 


"All  the  waters  that  were  in  the  river  were  turned  to  blood." 
Exodus  vii,  20. 

V#¥fmong  all  the  Egyptian  plagues  none  could  have 
■ill been  worse  than  this.  The  Nile  is  the  wealth  of 
S Jh^Egypt.  Its  fish  the  food,  its  waters  the  irriga- 
tion of  garden  and  fields.  Its  condition  decides  the 
prosperity  or  the  doom  of  the  empire.  What  happens 
to  the  Nile  happens  to  all  Egypt.  And  now  in  the  text 
that  great  river  is  incarnadined.  It  is  a  red  gash  across 
an  empire.  In  poetic  license  we  speak  of  wars  which 
turn  the  rivers  into  blood.  But  my  text  is  not  a  poetic 
license.  It  was  a  fact,  a  great  crimson,  appalling  con- 
dition described.  The  Nile  rolling  deep  of  blood.  Can 
you  imagine  a  more  awful  plague? 

CRIME  IN  OUR  CITIES. 

The  modern  plague  which  nearest  corresponds  with  that 
is  the  plague  of  crime  in  all  our  cities.  It  halts  not  for 
bloodshed.  It  shrinks  from  no  carnage.  It  bruises  and 
cuts  and  strikes  down  and  destroys.  It  revels  in  the 
blood  of  body  and  soul,  this  plague  of  crime  rampant 
for  ages,  and  never  bolder  or  more  rampant  than  now. 

The  annual  police  reports  of  these  cities  as  I  examine 
them  are  to  me  more  suggestive  than  Dente's  Inferno, 
and  all  Christian  people  as  well  as  reformers  need  to 
awaken  to  a  present  and  tremendous  duty.  If  you  want 
this  "Plague  of  Crime"  to  stop  there  are  several  kinds  of 

(no 


112  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

persons  you  need  to  consider.  First,  the  public  crimi- 
nals. You  ought  not  to  be  surprised  that  these  people 
make  up  a  large  portion  in  many  communities.  The 
vast  majority  of  the  criminals  who  take  ship  from  Eu- 
rope come  into  our  own  port.  In  1869,  of  the  forty- 
nine  thousand  people  who  were  incarcerated  in  the 
prison  of  the  country,  thirty-two  thousand  were  of  foreign 
birth.  Many  of  them  were  the  very  desperadoes  of 
society,  oozing  into  the  slums  of  our  city,  waiting  for 
an  opportunity  to  riot  and  steal  and  debauch,  joining  the 
large  gang  of  American  thugs  and  cut-throats. 

There  are  in  this  cluster  of  cities  (New  York,  Jersey 
City  and  Brooklyn)  four  thousand  people  whose  entire 
business  in  life  is  to  commit  suicide.  That  is  as  much 
their  business  as  jurisprudence  or  medicine  or  merchan- 
dise is  yom  business.  To  it  they  bring  all  their  energies 
of  body,  mind  and  soul,  and  they  look  upon  the  inter- 
vals which  they  spend  in  prison  as  so  much  unfortunate 
loss  of  time,  just  as  you  look  upon  an  attack  of  influenza 
and  rheumatism  which  fastens  you  in  the  house  for  a  few 
days.  It  is  their  lifetime  business  to  pick  pockets,  and 
blow  up  safes,  and  shop  lift,  and  play  the  panel  game, 
and  they  have  as  much  pride  of  skill  in  their  business  as 
you  have  in  yours  when  you  upset  the  argument  of  an 
opposing  counsel,  or  cure  a  gunshot  fracture  which  other 
surgeons  have  given  up,  or  fore-see  a  turn  in  the  market 
as  you  buy  goods  just  before  they  go  up  20  per  cent. 
It  is  their  business  to  commit  crime,  and  I  do  not  sup- 
pose that  once  in  a  year  the  thought  of  the  immorality 
strikes  them. 

Added  to  these  professional   criminals,  American    and 


THE    PLAGUE    OF  CRIME.  I  I  3 

foreign,  there  is  a  large  class  of  men  who  are  more  or 
less  industrious  in  crime.  In  one  year  the  police  in  this 
cluster  of  cities  arrested  ten  thousand  people  for  theft, 
and  ten  thousand  for  assault  and  battery,  and  fifty  thou- 
sand for  intoxication.  Drunkenness  is  responsible  for 
much  of  the  theft,  since  it  confuses  a  man's  ideas  of 
propriety,  and  he  gets  his  hands  on  things  that  do  not 
belong  to  him.  Rum  is  responsible  for  much  of  the  as- 
sault and  battery,  inspiring  men  to  sudden  bravery, 
which  they  must  demonstrate  though  it  be  on  the  face 
of  the  next  gentlemen. 

SOCIETY  THREATENED  ON  ALL  SIDES. 

Ten  million  dollars'  worth  of  property  stolen  in  this 
cluster  of  cities  in  one  year!  You  cannot,  as  good  citi- 
zens, be  independent  of  that  fact.  It  will  touch  your 
pockets,  since  I  have  to  give  you  the  fact  that  these 
three  cities  pay  about  eight  million  dollars'  worth  of  tax- 
es a  year  to  arraign,  try  and  support  the  criminal  popula- 
tion. You  help  to  pay  the  board  of  every  criminal, 
from  the  sneak  thief  that  snatches  a  spool  of  cotton  up 
to  some  man  who  swamps  a  bank.  More  than  that,  it 
touches  your  heart  in  the  moral  depression  of  the  com- 
munity. You  might  as  well  think  to  stand  in  a  closely 
confined  room  where  there  are  fifty  people,  and  yet  not 
breathe  the  vitiated  air,  as  to  stand  in  a  community  where 
there  is  such  a  great  multitude  of  the  depraved,  without 
somewhat  being  contaminated.  What  is  the  fire  that 
burns  your  store  down  compared  with  the  conflagration 
which  consumes  your  morals?  What  is  the  theft  of  the 
gold  and  silver  from  your  money  safe,  compared  with 
the  theft  of  your  children's  virtue?     We  are  all    ready  to 


I  14  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

arraign  criminals.  We  shout  at  the  top  of  our  voice, 
"Stop  thief!"  and  when  the  police  get  on  the  track  we 
come  out  haltless  and  in  our  slippers,  and  assist  in  the 
arrest.  We  come  around  the  bawling  ruffian  and  hus- 
tle him  off  to  justice,  and  when  he  gets  in  prison  what 
do  we  do  for  him?  With  great  gusto  we  put  on  the 
handcuffs,  and  the  hopples;  but  what  preparation  are  we 
making  for  the  day  when  the  handcuffs  and  the  hopples 
come  off?  Society  seems  to  say  to  these  criminals, 
"Villain,  go  in  there  and  rot,"  when  it  ought  to  say, 
"You  are  an  offender  against  the  law,  but  we  mean  to 
give  you  an  opportunity  to  repent;  we  mean  to  help  you. 
Here  are  Bibles,  and  tracts,  and  Christian  influences. 
Christ  died  for  you.      Look  and  live." 

Vast  improvements  have  been  made  by  introducing  in- 
dustries into  the  prison;  but  we  want  something  more 
than  hammers  and  shoe  lasts  to  reclaim  these  people. 
Aye,  we  want  more  than  sermons  on  the  sabbath  day. 
Society  must  impress  these  men  with  the  fact  that  it 
does  not  enjoy  their  suffering,  and  that  it  is  attempting 
to  reform  and  elevate  them.  The  majority  of  criminals 
suppose  that  society  has  a  grudge  against  them,  and 
they  in  turn  have  a  grudge  against  society.  They  are 
harder  in  heart  and  more  infuriate  when  they  come  out 
of  jail  than  when  they  went  in.  Many  of  the  people 
who  go  to  prison,  go  again  and  again  and  again. 

STARTLING  FIGURES! 

Some  years  ago,  of  fifteen  hundred  prisoners,  who 
during  the  year  had  been  in  Sing  Sing,  four  hundred  had 
been  there  before,  In  a  house  of  correction  in  the 
country,  whore  during  a  certain  reach  of  time,  there  had 


THE  PLAGUE  OF  CRIME.  I  I  5 

been  five  thousand  people,  more  than  three  thousand 
had  been  there  before.  So  in  one  case  the  prison,  and 
in  the  other,  the  house  of  correction,  left  them  just  as 
bad  as  they  were  before  The  secretary  of  one  of  the 
benevolent  societies  of  New  York  saw  a  lad  of  fifteen 
years  of  age  who  had  spent  three  years  of  his  life  in 
prison,    and  he  said  to  the  lad: 

"What  have  they  done  for    you  to  make    you    better?" 

"Well,"  replied  the  lad,  "the  first  time  I  was  brought 
up  before  the  judge  he  said: 

'You  ought  to  be    ashamed  of  yourself. ' 

And  then  I  committed  a  crime  again,  and  I  was 
brought  up  before  the  same  judge,  and  he  said: 

'You  rascal!' 

And  after  a  while  I  committed  some  other  crime,  and 
I  was  brought  before  the  same  judge,    and  he  said: 

'You  ought  to  be  hanged. '" 

That  was  all  they  had  done  for  him  in  the  way  of 
reformation  and  salvation.  "Oh"  you,  say  "these  peo- 
ple are  incorrigible. "  I  suppose  there  are  hundreds  of  per- 
sons this  day  lying  in  the  prison  bunks  who  would  leap 
up  at  the  prospect  of  reformation  if  society  would  only 
allow  them  a   way  into  decency  and  respectability. 

THE  CONTAMINATION  OF  CORRUPT  SURROUNDINGS! 

"Oh"  you  say,  "I  have  no  patience  with  these  rogues." 
I  ask  you  in  reply,  how  much  better  would  you  have 
been  under  the  same  circumstances?  Suppose  your 
mother  had  been  a  blasphemer  and  your  father  a  sot, 
and  you  had  started  life  with  a  body  stuffed  with  evil 
proclivities,  and  you  had  spent  much  of  your  time  in  a 
cellar  amid  obscenities  and  cursing,  and  if    at    ten  years 


1 1 6  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

of  age  you  had  been  compelled  to  go  out  and  steal,  bat- 
tered and  banged  at  night  if  you  came  in  without  any 
spoil,  and  suppose  your  early  manhood  and  womanhood 
had  been  covered  with  rags  and  filth,  and  decent  society 
had  turned  its  back  upon  you,  and  left  you  to  consort 
with  vagabonds  and  wharf  rats — how  much  better  would 
you  have  been?  I  have  no  sympathy  with  that  executive 
clemency  which  would  let  crime  run  loose,  or  which 
would  sit  in  the  gallery  of  the  court  room  weeping,  be- 
cause some  hard  hearted  wretch  is  brought  to  justice; 
but  I  do  say  that  the  safety  and  life  of  the  community 
demand  more  potential  influences  in  behalf  of  public 
offenders. 

SOME    OE  THE  SAD  SIGHTS  I  HAVE    SEEN. 

In  some  of  the  city  prisons  the  air  is  like  that  of  the 
Black  Hole  of  Calcutta.  I  have  visited  prisons  where, 
as  the  air  swept  through  the  wicket,  it  almost  knocked 
me  down.  No  sunlight.  Young  men  who  had  com- 
mitted their  first  crime  crowded  in  among  old  offenders. 
I  saw  in  one  prison  a  woman,  with  a  child  almost  blind, 
who  had  been  arrested  for  the  crime  of  poverty,  who  was 
waiting  until  the  slow  law  could  take  her  to  the  alms- 
house, where  she  rightfuly  belonged;  but  she  was  thrust 
n  there  with  her  child,  amid  the  most  abandoned 
wretches  of  the  town.  Many  of  the  offenders  in  that 
prison  slept  on  the  floor,  with  nothing  but  a  vermin  cov- 
ered blanket  over  them.  Those  people  crowded  and 
wan  and  wasted  and  half  suffocated  and  infuriated.  I 
said  to  the  men,  "How  do  you  stand  it  here?"  "God 
knows,"  said  one  man,  "we  have  to  to  stand  it."  Oh, 
they  will  pay    you  when   they    get    out.         Where    they 


THE  PLAGUE  OF  CRIME.  I  I  7 

burned  down  one  house  they  will  burn  three.  They  will 
strike  deeper  the  assassin's  knife.  They  are  this  minute 
plotting  worse  burglaries. 

JAILS  ARE  OFTEN  CRIMINAL  MANUFACTORIES. 

Some  of  the  city  jails  are  the  best  places  I  know  of 
to  manufacture  footpads,  vagabonds  and  cut-throats. 
Yale  college  is  not  so  well  calculated  to  make  scholars, 
nor  Harvard  so  well  calculated  to  make  scientists,  nor 
Princeton  so  well  calculated  to  make  theologians,  as 
many  of  our  jails  are  calculated  to  make  criminals.  All 
that  those  men  do  not  know  of  crime,  after  they  have 
been  in  the  dungeon  for  some  time,  Satanic  machina- 
tion cannot  teach  them,  In  the  insufferable  stench  and 
sicknening  surroundings  of  such  places,  there  is  nothing 
but  disease  for  the  body,  idiocy  for  the  mind,  and  death 
for  the  soul.  Stifled  air,  and  darkness,  and  vermin, 
never  turned  a  thief  into  an  honest  man. 

We  want  men  like  John  Howard,  and  Sir  William 
Blackstone,  and  women  like  Elizabeth  Fry,  to  do  for  the 
prisons  of  the  United  States,  what  those  people  did  in 
other  days  for  the  prisons  of  England.  1  thank  God  for 
what  Isaac  T.  Hopper,  and  Dr.  Wines,  and  Mr.  Harris, 
and  scores  of  others,  have  done  in  the  way  of  prison  reform, 
but  be  want  something  more  radical  before  will  come 
the  blessings  of  Him  who  said:  "I  was  in  prison  and  ye 
came  unto  me." 

UNTRUSTWORTHY  OFFICALS. 

Again,  in  your  effort  to  arrest  this  plague  of  crime  you 
need  to  consider    untrustworthy  officials.  "Woe  nnto 

thee,  O  land,  when  thy  king  is  a  child,  and  thy  princes 
drink  in  the  morning."      It  is  a  great  calamity  to  a  city 


Il8  EVILS   OF   THE   CITIES. 

when  bad  men  get  into  public  authority.  Why  was  it 
that  in  New  York  there  was  such  unparalleled  crime  be- 
tweeu  1866  and  1871?  It  was  because  the  judges  of 
police  in  that  city  at  that  time  for  the  most  part  were  as 
corrupt  as  the  vagabonds  that  came  before  them  for 
trial.  Those  were  the  days  of  high  carnival  for  election 
frauds,  assassination,  and  forgery.  We  had  all  kinds  of 
rings.  There  was  one  man  during  those  years  that  got 
one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  thousand  dollars  in  one 
year  for  serving  the  public. 

$50,000,000,00  SQUANDERED. 

In  a  few  years  it  was  estimated  that  there  were  fifty 
millions  of  public  treasure  squandered.  In  those  times 
the  criminal  had  only  to  wink  to  the  judge,  or  his  law- 
yer would  wink  for  him,  and  the  question  was  decided 
for  the  defendent.  Of  the  eight  thousand  people  ar- 
rested in  that  city  in  one  year,  only  three  thousand  were 
punished.  These  little  matters  were  "fixed  up,"  while 
the  interests  of  society  were  "fixed  down."  You  know 
as  well  as  I  do  that  one  villain  who  escapes,  only  opens 
the  door  for  other  criminalities.  When  the  two  pick- 
pockets snatched  the  diamond  pin  from  the  Brooklyn 
gentlemen  in  a  Broadway  stage,  and  the  villains  were 
arrested,  and  the  trial  was  set  down  for  the  general 
sessions,  and  then  the  trial  never  came,  and  never  any- 
thing more  was  heard  of  the  case,  the  public  officials 
were  only  bidding  higher  for  more  crime. 

It  is  no  compliment  to  public  authority  when  we  have 
in  all  the  cities  of  the  country,  walking  abroad,  men  and 
women  notorious  for  crimmality  unwhipped  of  justice. 
They  are  pointed  out  to  you   in    the    street,  day  by  day. 


THE    PLAGUE  OF  CRIME.  I  I  5 

There  you  find  what  are  called  the  "fences,"  the  men 
who  stand  between  the  thief  and  the  honest  man,  shel- 
tering the  thief,  and  at  a  great  price  handing  over  the 
goods  to  the  owner  to  whom  they  belong.  There  you 
will  find  those  who  are  called  the  "skinners,"  the  men 
who  hover  around  Wall  street,  with  great  sleight  of  hand 
in  bonds  and  stocks.  There  you  find  the  funeral  thieves, 
the  people  who  go  and  sit  down  and  mourn  with  families 
and  pick  their  pockets.  And  there  you  find  the  "con- 
fidence men,"  who  borrow  money  of  you  because  they 
have  a  dead  child  in  the  house  and  want  to  bury  it,  when 
they  never  had  a  house  or  a  family;  or  they  want  to  go 
to  England  and  get  a  large  property  there,  and  they 
want  you  to  pay  their  way  and  they  will  send  the  money 
black  by  the  very  next  mail. 

"SHOPLIFTERS,"     "PICKPOCKETS,"    ETC. 

There  are  the  '  'harbor  thieves, "  the  '  'shoplifters, "  the 
"pickpockets,"  famous  all  over  the  cities.  Hundreds  of 
them  with  their  faces  in  the  Rogues'  Gallery,  yet  doing 
nothing  for  the  last  five  or  ten  years  but  defraud  society 
and  escape  justice.  When  these  people  go  unarrested 
and  unpunished  it  is  putting  a  high  premium  upon  vice 
and  saying  to  the  young  criminals  of  this  country, 
"What  a  safe  thing  it  is  to  be  a  great  criminal!"  Let 
the  law  swoop  upon  them.  Let  it  be  known  to  this 
country  that  crime  will  have  no  quarter;  that  the  detec- 
tives are  after  it;  that  the  police  club  is  being  brand- 
ished; that  the  iron  door  of  the  prison  is  being  opened; 
that  the  judge  is  ready  to  call  on  the  case.  Too  great 
leniency  to  criminals  is  too  great  severity  to  society. 

Again  in  your  effort  to  arrest  the  plague  of   crime  you 


120  EVILS   OF   THE    CITIES. 

need  to  consider  the  idle  population.  Of  course  I  do 
not  refer  to  people  who  are  getting  old,  or  to  the  sick, 
or  to  those  who  cannot  get  work,  but  I  tell  you  to  look 
out  far  those  athletic  men  and  women,  who  will  not 
work.  When  the  French  nobleman  was  asked  why  he 
kept  busy  when  he  had  so  large  a  property  he  said,  "I 
keep  on  engraving  so  I  may  not  hang  myself."  I  do  not 
care  who  the  man  is,  you  cannot  afford  to  be  idle.  It 
is  from  the  idle  classes  that  the  criminal  classes  are 
made  up.  Character,  like  water,  gets  putrid  if  it  stands 
still  too  long.  Who  can  wonder  that  in  this  world, 
where  there  is  so  much  to  do,  and  all  the  hosts  of  the 
earth  and  heaven  and  hell  are  plunging  into  the  conflict, 
and  angels  are  flying,  and  God  is  at  work,  and  the  un- 
iverse is  a-quake  with  the  marching  and  counter  march- 
ing, that  God  lets  his  indignation  fall  upon  a  man  who 
chooses  idleness? 

THE  DO-NOTHINGS. 

I  have  watched  these  do-nothings  who  spend  their 
time  stroking  their  beard  and  retouching  their  toilet  and 
criticising  industrious  people,  and  pass  their  days  and 
nights  in  bar  rooms  and  club  houses,  lounging,  and 
smoking,  and  chewing,  and  card  playing.  They  are 
not  only  useless,  but  they  are  dangerous.  How  hard  it 
is  for  them  to  while  away  the  hours!  Alas,  for  them!  If 
they  do  not  know  how  to  while  away  an  hour,  what  will 
they  do  when  they  have  all  eternity  on  their  hands? 
These  men  for  a  while  smoke  the  best  cigars,  and  wear 
the  best  clothes,  and  move  in  the  highest  spheres,  but 
I  have  noticed  that  very  soon  they  come  down  to  the 
prison,  the  almshouse  or  stop  at  the  gallows. 


THE    PLAGUE    OF    CRIME.  121 

The  police  stations  of  this  cluster  of  cities  furnish  an- 
nually between  two  and  three  hundred  thousand  lodgings. 
For  the  most  part  these  two  and  three  hundred  thou- 
sand lodgings  are  furnished  to  able  bodied  men  and 
women — people  as  able  to  work  as  you  and  I  are. 
When  they  are  received  no  longer  at  one  police  station 
because  they  are  "repeaters,"  they  go  to  some  other  sta- 
tion, and  so  they  keep  moving  around.  They  get  their 
food  at  house  doors,  stealing  what  they  can  lay  their 
hands  on  in  the  front  basement  while  the  servant  is 
spreading  the  bread  in  the  back  basement.  They  will 
not  work.  Time  and  again  in  the  country  districts,  they 
have  wanted  hundreds  and  thousands  of  laborers. 
These  men  will  not  go.      They  do  not  want  to  work. 

I  have  tried  them.  I  have  set  them  to  sawing  wood 
in  my  cellar  to  see  whether  they  wanted  to  work.  I 
offered  to  pay  them  well  for  it.  I  have  heard  the  saw 
going  for  about  three  minutes,  and  then  I  went  down, 
and  lo!  the  wood,  but  no  saw!  They  are  the  pest  of 
society,  and  they  stand  in  the  way  of  the  Lord's  poor 
who  ought  to  be  helped,  and  must  be  helped  and  will  be 
helped. 

While  there  are  thousands  of  industrious  men  who 
cannot  get  any  work,  these  men  who  do  not  want  any 
work  come  in  and  make  that  plea.  I  am  in  favor  of 
the  restoration  of  the  old  fashioned  whipping  post  for 
just  this  one  class  of  men  who  will  not  work — 
sleeping  at  night  at  public  expense  in  the  station  house, 
duriug  the  day  get  their  food  at  our  doorstep.  Im- 
prisonment does  not  scare  them.  They  would  like  it. 
Blackwell's  Island  or  Sing  Sing  would    be  a   comfortable 


122  EVILS   OF  THE   CITIES. 

home  for  them.  They  would  have  no  objection  to  the 
almshouse,  for  they  like  thin  soup,  if  they  cannot  get 
mock  turtle. 

WHAT  I  PROPOSE  FOR    THE  DO  NOTHINGS. 

I  propose  this  for  them:  On  one  side  of  them  put 
some  healthy  work;  on  the  other  side  put  a  rawhide, 
and  let  them  take  their  choice.  I  like  for  that  class  of 
people  the  scant  bill  of  fare  that  Paul  wrote  out  for  the 
Thessalonian  loafers,  "If  any  work  not,  neither  should 
he  eat."  By  what  law  of  God  or  man  is  it  right  that 
you  and  I  should  toil  day  in  and  out,  until  our  hands  are 
blistered,  and  our  arms  ache,  and  our  brain  gets  numb, 
and  then  be  called  upon  to  support  what  in  the  United 
States  are  about  two  million  loafers?  They  are  a  very 
dangerous  class.  Let  the  public  authorities  keep  their 
eyes  on  them. 

THE    ILL   TREATED    BECOME    DESPERATE. 

Again,  among  the  uprooting  classes  I  place  the  op- 
pressed poor.  Poverty  to  a  certain  extent  is  chasten- 
ing, but  after  that,  when  it  drives  a  man  to  the  wall, 
and  he  hears  his  children  cry  in  vain  for  bread,  it  some 
times  makes  him  desperate.  I  think  there  are  thousands 
of  honest  men  lacerated  into  vagabondism.  There  are 
men  crushed  under  burdens  for  which  they  are  not  half 
paid.  While  there  is  no  excuse  for  criminality,  even  in 
oppression,  I  state  it  as  a  simple  fact  that  much  of  the 
scoundrelism  of  the  commnnity  is  consequent  upon  ill 
treatment.  There  are  many  men  and  women  battered, 
and  bruised,  and  stung,  until  the  hour  of  despair  has 
come,  and  they  stand  with  the    ferocity  of    a  wild   beast 


THE  PLAGUE  OF  CRIME.  I  23 

which,  pursued  until  it  can  run    no  longer,  turns    ronnd, 
foaming  and  bleeding,  to  fight  the  hounds. 

UNDER  GROUND  NEW  YORK  AND  BROOKLYN! 

There  is  a  vast  underground  New  York  and  Brooklyn 
life  that  is  appalling  and  shameful.  It  wallows  and 
steams  with  putrefaction.  You  go  down  the  stairs 
which  are  wet  and  decayed  with  filth,  and  at  the  bottom 
you  find  the  poor  victims  on  the  floor,  cold,  sick,  three 
fourths  dead,  slinking  into  a  still  darker  corner  under  the 
gleam  of  the  lantern  of  the  police.  There  has  not  been 
a  breath  of  fresh  air  in  that  room  for  five  years,  literally. 
The  broken  sewer  empties  its  contents  upon  them,  and 
they  lie  at  night  in  the  swimming  filth.  There  they  are, 
men,  women,  children;  blacks,  whites:  Mary  Magdelen 
without  her  repentance,  and  Lazarus  without  his  God. 
These  are  '  'the  dives"  into  which  the  pickpockets  and 
the  thieves  go,  as  well  as  a  great  many  who  would  like 
a  different  life,  but  cannot  get  it. 

These  places  are  the  sores  of  the  city,  which  bleed  per- 
petual corruption.  They  are  the  underlying  volcano 
that  threatens  us  with  a  Caraccas  earthquake.  It  rolls 
and  roars,  and  surges,  and  heaves,  and  rocks,  and  blas- 
phemes, and  dies,  and  there  are  only  two  outlets  for  it — the 
police  court  and  the  Potter's  field.  In  other  words,  they 
must  either  go  to  prison,  or  to  hell.  Oh,  you  never  saw 
it,  you  say.  You  never  will  see  it  until  on  the  day  when 
those  staggering  wretches  shall  come  up  in  the  light  of 
the  judgment  throne,  and  while  all  hearts  are  being  re- 
vealed, God  will  ask  you  what  you  did  to  help  them. 

There  is  another  layer  of  poverty  and  destination  not 
so  squalid,  but  almost  as  helpless.      You  hear   the   inces- 


124  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

sant  wailing  for  bread  and  clothes  and  fire.  Their  eyes 
are  sunken.  Their  cheek  bones  stand  out.  Their 
hands  are  damp  with  slow  consumption.  Their  flesh  is 
puffed  up  with  dropsies.  Their  breath  is  like  that  of  the 
charnel  house.  They  hear  the  roar  of  the  wheels  of  fash- 
ion overhead  and  the  gay  laughter  of  men  and  maidens, 
and  wonder  why  God  gave  to  others  so  much,  and  to 
them  so  little.  Some  of  them  thrust  into  an  infidelity 
likj  that  of  the  poor  German  girl  who,  when  told  in  the 
midst  of  her  wretchedness  that  God  was  good,  said: 
"No;  no  good  God.     Just  look  at  me.      No  good  God." 

OUR  300,000  HONEST  POOR. 

In  this  cluster  of  cities  whose  cry  of  want  I  interpret 
there  are  said  to  be,  as  far  as  I  can  figure  it  up  from  the 
reports,  aboat  three  hundred  thousand  honest  poor  who 
are  dependent   upon  iudividual,  city  and  state  charities. 

If  all  their  voices  could  come  up  at  once  it  would  be 
a  groan  that  would  shake  the  foundation  of  the  city  and 
bring  all  earth  and  heaven  to  the  rescue.  But  for  the 
most  part  it  suffers  unexpressed.  It  sits  in  silence  gnash- 
ing its  teeth  and  sucking  the  blood  of  his  own  arteries 
waiting  for  the  judgment  day.  Oh,  I  should  not  wond- 
er if  on  that  day  it  would  be  found  that  some  of  us  had 
somethings  that  belonged  to  them,  some  extra  garment 
which  might  have  made  tbem  comfortable  in  sold  days; 
some  bread  thrust  into  the  ash  barrel  that  might  have 
appeased  their  hunger  for  a  little  while;  some  wasted 
candle,  or  gas  jet,  that  might  have  kindled  up  their 
darkness;  some  fresco  on  the  ceiling  that  would  have 
given  them  a  roof;  some  jewel  which,  brought  to  the 
orphan  girl    in   time,  might    have    kept    her  from  being 


THE    PLAGUE  OF  CRIME.  125 

crowded  off  the  precipices  of  an  unclean  life;  some  New 
Testament  that  would  have  told  them  of  Him  who 
"came  to  save  that  which  was  lost." 

Oh,  this  wave  of  vagrancy  and  hunger  and  nakedness 
that  dashes  against  our  front  door  step!  If  the  roofs 
of  all  the  houses  of  destitution  could  be  lifted  so  we 
could  look  down  into  them  just  as  God  looks,  whose  nerves 
would  be  strong  enough  to  stand  it?  And  yet  there 
they  are!  The  fifty  thousand  sewing  wonen  in  these 
three  cities,  some  of  them  in  hunger  and  cold,  working 
night  after  night,  until  sometimes  the  blood  spurts  from 
nostril  and  lips.  How  well  their  grief  was  voiced  by 
that  despairing  woman  who  stood  by  her  invalid  hus- 
band and  invalid  child,  and  said  to  the  city  missionary: 
"I  am  down  hearted,  everything's  against  us;  and  then 
there  are  other  things." 

"What  other  things?"  said  the  city  missionary. 

"Oh,"  she  repeated,   "my  sin." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 

."Well,"  she  said,  I  never  hear  or  see  any  thing  good. 
It's  work  from  Monday  morning  till  Saturday  night,  and 
and  then  when  Sunday  comes  I  can't  go  out,  and  I  walk 
the  floor,  and  it  makes  me  tremble  to  think  that  I  have 
got  to  meet  God.  Oh,  sir,  its  so  hard  for  us.  We  have 
to  work  so,  and  then  we  have  so  much  trouble,  and  then 
we  are  getting  along  so  poorly;  and  see  this  wee  little 
thing  growing  weaker  and  weaker;  and  then  to  think  we 
are  not  getting  nearer  to  God  but  floating  away  from 
Him.       Oh,  sir,  I  do  wish  I  was  ready  to  die." 

I  should  not  wonder  if  they  had  a  good  deal  better 
time  than  we  in  the   future,    to  make    up  for   the   fact 


126  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

that  they  had  such  a  bad  time  here.  It  would  be  just 
like  Jesus  to  say:  "Come  up  and  take  the  highest  seat, 
you  suffered  with  me  on  earth;  now  be  glorified  with  me 
in  heaven."  O  thou  weeping  One  of  Bethany!  O  thou 
dying  One  of  the  cross!  Have  mercy  <sn  the  starving, 
freezing,  homeless  poor  of  these  great  cities! 

MY  REASONS  FOR  PREACHING  THIS  SERMON. 

I  have  preached  this  sermon  for  four  or  five  practical 
reasons:  Because  I  want  you  to  know  who  are  the  up- 
rooting classes  of  society.  Because  I  want  you  to  be 
more  discriminating  in  your  charities.  Because  I  want 
your  hearts  open  with  generosity,  and  your  hands  open 
with  charity.  Because  I  want  you  to  be  made  the 
sworn  friends  of  all  city  evangelization,  and  all  news- 
boys' lodging  houses,  and  all  children's  aid  societies,  and 
Dorcas  societies,  under  the  skillful  manipulation  of  wives 
and  mothers  and  sisters  and  daughters;  let  the  spare  gar- 
ments of  your  wardrobes  be  fitted  to  the  limbs  of  the 
wan  and  shivering.  I  should  not  wonder  if  that  hat 
that  you  gave  come  back  a  jeweled  coronet,  or  if  that 
garment  you  hand  out  from  your  wardrobe  should  mys- 
teriously be  whitened,  and  somehow  be  wrought  into  the 
Saviour's  own  robe,  so  in  the  last  day  he  would  run  his 
hand  over  it  and  say,  "I  was  naked  and  ye  clothed  me.' 
That  would  be  putting  your  garments  to  glorious  uses. 

But  more  than  that,  I  have  preached  the  sermon  be- 
cause I  thought  in  the  contrast  you  would  see  how  very 
kindly  God  had  dealt  with  you,  and  I  thought  that  thou- 
sands of  you  would  go  to  your  comfortable  homes,  and 
sit  at  your  well  filed  tables  and  at  your  warm  registers, 
and  look  at  the  round   faces  of  your  children,  and    that 


THE    PLAGUE  OF    CRIME.  1 2J 

then  you  would  burst  into  tears  at  the  review  of  God's 
goodness  to  you,  and  that  you  would  go  to  your  room 
and  lock  your  door  and  kneel  down  and  say: 

"O  Lord,  I  have  been  an  ingrate;  make  me  thy 
child.  O  Lord,  there  are  so  many  hungry  and  unclad 
and  unsheltered  to  day,  I  thank  thee  that  all  my 
life  thou  hast  taken  such  good  care  of  me.  O  Lord 
there  are  so  many  sick  and  crippeled  children  to-day,  I 
thank  the  mine  are  well — some  of  them  on  earth,  some 
of  them  in  heaven.  Thy  goodness,  O  Lord  breaks  me 
down.  Take  me  once  and  forever.  Sprinkled  as  I  was 
many  years  ago  at  the  altar,  while  my  mother  held  me, 
now  I  consecrate  my  soul  to  Thee  in  a  holier  baptism  of 
repenting  tears." 

"For  sinners,  Lord,  thou  cam'st  to  bleed, 
And  I'm   a  sinner  vile  indeed; 
Lord,  I  believe  thy  grace  is  free, 
O  magnify  that  grace  to  me." 


THE  WAR  OF  CAPITAL  AND    LABOR  IN  THE 
CITIES. 


'  'Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to 
them."     Matt,  vii,    12. 

>wo  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  laborers  in  Hyde 
park,  London,  and  the  streets  of  American  and 
European  cities  filled  with  processions  of  work- 
men carrying  banners,  brings  the  subject  of  Labor  and 
Capital  to  the  front.  That  all  this  was  done  in  peace, 
and  that  as  a  result,  in  many  places,  arbitration  has  taken 
place,  is  a  hopeful  sign. 

A  WAR  OF    FIVE  CONTINENTS. 

The  greatest  war  the  world  has  ever  seen  is  between 
capital  and  labor.  The  strife  is  not  like  that  which  in 
history  is  called  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  for  it  is  a  war  of 
centuries,  it  is  a  war  of  the  five  continents,  it  is  a  war 
hemispheric.  The  middle  classes  in  this  country,  upon 
whom  the  nation  has  depended  for  holding  the  balance 
of  power  and  for  acting  as  mediators  between  the  two 
extremes,  are  diminishing;  and  if  things  go  on  at  the  same 
ratio  as  they  have  for  the  last  twenty  years  been  going 
on,  it  will  not  be  very  long  before  there  will  be  no  middle 
class  in  this  country,  but  all  will  be  very  rich  or  very  poor, 
princes  or  paupers,  and  the  country  will  be  given  up  to 
palaces  and  hovels. 

The  antagonistic  forces  have  again  and  again  closed  in 
upon  each  other.        You  may  pooh  pooh  it;  you  may  say 

[128] 


WAR  OF  CAPITAL  AND  LABOR.  I  29 

that  this  trouble,  like  an  angry  child,  will  cry  itself  to 
sleep;  you  may  belittle  it  by  calling  it  Foulerism,  or 
Socialism,  or  St.  Simonism,  or  Nihilism,  or  Communism, 
but  that  will  not  hinder  the  fact  that  it  is  the  mightiest, 
the  darkest,  the  most  terrific  threat  of  this  century. 
Most  of  the  attempts  at  pacification  have  been  dead 
failures,  and  monopoly  is  more  arrogant  and  the  trades 
unions  more  bitter. 

''Give  us  more  wages,"  cry  the  employes. 

"You  shall  have  less,"  says  the  capitalists. 

"Compel  us  to  do  fewer  hours    of  toil  in   a  day." 

"You  shall  toil  more  hours,"  say  the  others. 

"Then,  under  certain  conditions,  we  will  not  work  at 
all, "say  these. 

"Then  you  shall  starve,"  say  those,  and  the  workmen 
gradually  using  up  that  which  they  accumulated  in  better 
times,  unless  there  be  some  radical  change,  we  shall  have 
soon  in  this  country  three  million  hungry  men  and  women. 
Now,  three  million  hungry  people  cannot  be  kept  quiet. 
All  the  enactments  of  legislatures  and  all  the  constabu- 
laries of  the  cities,  and  all  the  army  and  navy  of  the 
United  States  cannot  keep  three  million  hungry  people 
quiet.  What  then?  Will  this  war  between  capital  and 
labor  be  settled  by  human  wisdom?  Never.  The  brow 
of  the  one  becomes  more  rigid,  the  fist  of  the  other  more 
clinched. 

But  that  which  human  wisdom  cannot  achieve  will  be 
accomplished  by  Christianity  if  it  be  given  full  sway.  You 
have  heard  of  medicines  so  powerful  that  one  drop  would 
stop  a  disease  and  restore  a  patient,  and  I  have  to  tell 
you  that  one  drop  of   my  text  properly  administered  will 


130  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

stop  all  these  woes  of  society  and  give  convalescence  and 
complete  health  to  all  classes.  '  'Whatsoever  ye  would 
that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  them."  I  shall 
grst  show  you  this  morning  how  this  controversy  between 
monopoly  and  hard  work  cannot  be  stopped,  and  then  I 
will  show  you  how  this  controversy  will  be  settled. 

FUTILE  REMEDIES. 

In  the  first  place  there  will  come  no  pacification  to  this 
trouble  through  an  outcry  against  rich  men,  merely  be- 
cause they  are  rich.  There  is  no  laboring  man  on  earth 
that  would  not  be  rich  if  he  could  be.  Sometimes 
through  a  fortunate  invention,  or  through  some  accident 
of  prosperity,  a  man  who  had  nothing,  comes  to  large 
estate,  and  we  see  him  arrogant  and  supercilious,  and 
taking  people  by  the  throat,  just  as  other  people  took 
him  by  the  throat. 

There  is  something  very  mean  about  human  nature 
when  it  comes  to  the  top.  But  it  is  no  more  a  sin  to  be 
rich,  than  it  is  a  sin  to  be  poor.  There  are  those  who 
have  gathered  a  great  estate  through  fraud,  and  then 
there  are  millionaires  who  have  gathered  their  fortunes 
through  foresight  in  regard  to  changes  in  the  markets, 
and  through  brilliant  business  faculty,  and  every  dollar 
of  their  estate  is  as  honest  as  the  dollar  which  the  plumb- 
er gets  for  mending  z.  pipe,  or  the  mason  gets  for  build- 
ing a  wall.  There  are  those  who  keep  in  poverty  be- 
cause of  their  own  fault.  They  might  have  been  well  off, 
but  they  smoked  or  chewed  up  their  earnings,  or  they 
lived  beyond  their  means,  while  others  on  the  same 
wages  and  on  the  same  salaries  went  on  to  competency. 
I  know    a  man    who  is    all  the    time   complaining  of  his 


WAR  OF  CAPITAL  AND  LABOR.  I3I 

poverty,  and  crying  out  against  rich  men,  while  he  him- 
self keeps  two  dogs,  and  chews  and  smokes,  and  is  filled 
to  the  chin  with  whisky  and  beer! 

Micawber  said  to  David  Copperfield:  "Copperfield, 
my  boy,  one  pound  income,  twenty  shillings  and  sixpence 
expenses;  result,  misery.  But  Copperfield,  my  boy,  one 
pound  income,  expenses  ninteen  shillings  and  sixpence; 
result,  happiness."  And  there  are  vast  multitudes  of 
people  who  are  kept  poor  because  they  are  the  victims  of 
their  own  improvidence.  It  is  no  sin  to  be  rich,  and  it 
is  no  sin  to  be  poor.-  I  protest  against  this  outcry  which 
I  hear  against  those  who,  through  economy  and  self  denial 
and  assiduity,  have  come  to  large  fortune.  This  bombard- 
ment of  commercial  success  will  never  stop  this  contro- 
versy between  capital  and  labor. 

Neither  will  the  contest  be  settled  by  cynical  and  un- 
sympathetic treatment  of  the  laboring  classes.  There 
are  those  who  speak  of  them  as  though  they  were  only 
cattle  or  draught  horses.  Their  nerves  are  nothing, 
their  domestic  comfort  is  nothing.  They  have  no  more 
sympathy  for  them  than  a  hound  has  for  a  hare,  or  a 
hawk  for  a  hen,  or  a  tiger  for  a  calf.  When  Jean  Val- 
jean,  the  greatest  hero  of  Victor  Hugo's  writings,  after  a 
life  of  suffering  and  brave  endurance,  goes  into  incar- 
ceration and  death,  they  clap  the  book  shut  and  say, 
"Good  for  him!"  They  stamp  their  feet  with  indigna- 
tion and  say  just  the  opposite  of  "Save  the  working 
classes."  They  have  all  their  sympathies  with  Shylock, 
and  not  with  Antonio  and  Portia.  They  are  plutocrats, 
and  their  feelings  are  infernal.  They  are  filled  with  irri- 
tation and  irascibility  on  this  subject.       To  stop  this  aw- 


132  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

ful  imbroglio  between  capital  and  labor,  they  will  lift 
not  so  much  as  the  tip  end  of  the  little  ringer. 

Neither  will  there  be  any  pacification  of  this  angry 
controversy  through  violence.  God  never  blessed  mur- 
der. Blow  up  to-morrow  the  country  seats  on  the  banks 
of  the  Hudson,  and  all  the  fine  houses  on  Madison  square, 
and  Brooklyn  heights,  and  Brooklyn  hill,  and  Ritten- 
house  square,  and  Beacon  street,  and  all  the  bricks  and 
timber  and  stone  will  just  fall  back  on  the  bare  head  of 
American  labor.  The  worst  enemies  of  the  working 
classes  in  the  United  States,  and  Ireland,  are  their  de- 
mented coadjutors.  A  few  yeary  ago  assassination — the 
assassination  of  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish  and  Mr. 
Burke  in  Phaenix  park,  Dublin,  Ireland,  in  the  attempt 
to  avenge  the  wrongs  of  Ireland — only  turned  away  from 
that  afflicted  people  millions  of  sympathizers.  The  at- 
tempt to  blow  up  the  house  of  commons,  in  London, 
had  only  this  effect:  to  throw  out  of  employment  tens  of 
thousands  of  innocent  Irish  people  in  England. 

In  this  country  the  torch  put  to  the  factories  that  have 
discharged  hands  for  good  or  bad  reason;  obstructions  on 
the  rail  track  in  front  of  midnight  express  trains  because 
the  offenders  do  not  like  the  president  of  the  company; 
strikes  on  shipboard  the  hour  they  were  going  to  sail,  or 
to  printing  offices  the  hour  the  paper  was  to  go  to  press; 
or  in  mines  the  day  the  coal  was  to  be  delivered,  or  on 
house  scaffoldings  so  the  builder  fails  in  keeping  his  con- 
tract— all  these  are  only  a  hard  blow  on  the  head  of 
American  labor,  and  cripple  its  arms,  and  lame  its  feet, 
and  pierce  its  heart.  As  a  result  of  one  of  our  great 
American    strikes  you    find  that    the  operatives    lost  four 


WAR  OF  CAPITAL  AND  LABOR.  133 

hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  wages,  and  have  had 
poor  wages  ever  since.  Traps  sprung  suddenly  upon 
employers,  and  violence,  never  took  one  knot  out  of  the 
knuckle  of  toil,  or  put  one  farthing  of  wages  into  a  cal- 
lous palm.  Barbarism  will  never  cure  the  wrongs  of 
civilization.      Mark  that! 

STORY  OF  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT  AND  THE    MILLER. 

Frederick  the  Great  admired  some  land  near  his  palace 
at  Potsdam  and  he  resolved  to  get  it.  It  was  owned  by 
a  miller.  He  offered  the  miller  three  times  the  value  of 
the  property.  The  miller  would  not  take  it,  because  it 
was  the  old  homestead,  and  he  felt  about  it  as  Naboth 
felt  about  his  vineyard  when  Ahab  wanted  it.  Frederick 
the  great  was  a  rough  and  terribie  man,  and  he  ordered 
the  miller  into  his  presence;  and  the  king  with  a  stick  in 
his  hand — a  stick  with  which  he  sometimes  struck  his 
officers  of  state — said  to  the  miller: 

'  'Now,  I  have  offered  you  three  times  the  value  of  that 
property,  and  if  you  won't  sell  it  I'll  take  it  anyhow." 

The  miller  said:    "Your  majesty,  you  won't." 

"Yes,"  said  the  king,   "I  will  take  it." 

"Then,"  said  the  miller,  "if  your  majesty  does  take 
it  I  will  sue  you  in  the  chancery  court." 

At  that  threat  Frederick  the  Great  yielded  his  infamous 
demand.  And  the  most  imperious  outrage  against  the 
working  classes  will  yet  cower  before  the  law.  Violence, 
and  contrary  to  the  law,  will. never  accomplish  anything, 
but  righteousness  and  according  to  law,  will  accomplish  it. 

GOLDEN  RULE  REMEDY. 

Well,  if  this  controversy  between  capital  aud  labor 
cannot  be  settled  by  human  wisdom,  it  is  time  for  us  to 


134  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

look  somewhere  else  for  relief,  and  it  points  from  my  text 
roseate  and  jubilant,  and  puts  one  hand  on  the  broad- 
cloth shoulder  of  capital,  and  put  the  other  hand  on  thfi 
homespun  covered  shoulder  of  toil,  and  says,  with  a  voice 
that  will  grandly  and  gloriously  settle  this  and  settle 
everything.  '  'Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do 
to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them."  That  is,  the  lady  of  the 
household  will  say:  "I  must  treat  the  maid  in  the 
kitchen  just  as  I  would  like  to  be  treated  if  I  were 
downstairs,  and  it  were  my  work  to  wash,  and  cook,  and 
sweep,  and  it  were  the  duty  of  the  maid  in  the  kitchen  to 
preside  in  this  parlor."  The  maid  in  the  kitchen  must 
say:  "If  my  employer  seems  to  be  more  prosperous  than 
I,  that  is  no  fault  of  hers;  I  shall  not  treat  her  as  an 
enemy.  I  will  have  the  same  industry  and  fidelity  down 
stairs  as  I  would  expect  from  any  subordinates  if  I  hap- 
pened to  be  the  wife  of  a  silk  importer." 

The  owner  of  an  iron  mill,  having  taken  a  dose  of  my 
text  before  leaving  home  in  the  morning,  will  go  into  his 
foundry,  and,  .  passing  into  what  is  called  the  puddiug 
room,  he  will  see  a  man  there  stripped  to  the  waist,  and 
besweated  and  exhausted  with  the  labor  and  the  toil, 
he  will  say  to  him:  "Why  it  seems  very  hot  inhere. 
You  look  very  much  exhausted.  I  hear  your  child  is 
sick  with  scarlet  fever.  If  you  want  your  wages  a  little 
earlier  this  week,  so  as  to  pay  the  nurse  and  get  the 
medicines,  just  come   into  my  office  at  any  time." 

After  awhile,  crash  goes  the  money  market,  and  there 
is  no  more  demand  for  the  articles  manufactured  in  that 
iron  mill,  and  the  owner  does  not  know  what  to  do.  He 
says,     "Shall  I    stop  the    mill,  or   shall  I  run    it  on  half 


WAR  OF  CAPITAL  AND  LABOR.  I  35 

time,  or  shall  I  cut  down  the  men's  wages?"  He  walks 
the  floor  of  his  counting  room  all  day,  hardly  knowing 
what  to  do.  Toward  evening  he  calls  all  the  laborers 
together.  They  stand  all  around,  some  with  arms  akimbo, 
some  folded  arms,  wondering  what  the  boss  is  going  to 
do  now.  The  manufacturer  says:  "Men,  business  is 
bad;  I  don't  make  twenty  dollars  where  I  used  to  make 
one  hundred.  Somehow,  there  is  no  demand  now  for 
what  we  manufacture,  or  but  very  little  demand.  You 
see,  I  am  at  vast  expense,  and  I  have  called  you  together 
this  afternoon  to  see  what  you  would  advise.  I  don't 
want  to  shut  up  the  mill,  because  that  would  force  you 
out  of  work,  and  you  have  always  been  very  faithful,  and 
I  like  you,  and  you  seem  to  like  me,  and  the  bairns  must 
be  looked  after,  and  your  wife  will  after  awhile  want  a 
new  dress.      I  don't  know  what  to  do. " 

GRATEFUL  WORKMAN. 

There  is  a  dead  halt  for  a  minute  or  two,  and  then  one 
of  the  workmen  steps  out  from  the  ranks  of  his  fellows 
and  says:  "Boss,  you  have  been  very  good  to  us,  and 
when  you  prospered  we  prospered,  and  now  you  are  in  a 
tight  place,  and  I  am  sorry,  and  we  have  got  to  sympa- 
thize with  you.  I  don't  know  how  the  others  feel,  but  I 
propose  that  we  take  off  twenty  percent  from  our  wages, 
and  that  when  the  times  get  good  you  will  remember  us 
and  raise  them  again."  The  workman  looks  around  to 
his  comrades,  and  says:  "Boys,  what  do  you  say  to  this? 
All  in  favor  of  my  proposition  will  say  ay.''  "Ay!  ay! 
ay!"  shout  two  hundred  voices. 

But  the  mill  owner,  getting  in  some  new  machinery, 
exposes  himself  very    much,  and  takes  cold  and  it  settles 


1 36  EVILS  OF    THIS  CITIES. 

into  pneumonia  and  he  dies.  In  the  procession  to  the 
tomb  are  all  the  workmen,  tears  rolling  down  their  cheeks 
and  off  upon  the  ground;  but  an  hour  before  the  proces- 
sion gets  to  the  cemetery  the  wives  and  the  children  of 
those  workmen  are  at  the  grave  waiting  for  the  arrival 
of  the  funeral  pageant.  The  minister  of  religion  may 
have  delivered  an  eloquent  eulogium  before  they  started 
from  the  house,  but  the  most  impressive  things  are  said 
that  day  by  the  working  classes  standing  around  the 
tomb.  That  night  in  all  the  cabins  of  the  working  peo- 
ple where  they  have  family  prayers,  the  widowhood  and 
the  orphanage  in  the  mansion  are  remembered.  No 
glaring  populations  look  over  the  iron  fence  of  the  ceme- 
tery; but,  hovering  over  the  scene,  the  benediction  of 
God  and  man  is  coming  for  the  fulfillment  of  the  Christ- 
like injunction,  '  'Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should 
do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them." 

GOLDEN  RULE    CORPORATIONS. 

"Oh,"  says  some  man  here,  "that  is  all  Utopian,  that 
is  apocryphal,  that  is  impossible."  No,  I  cut  out  of  a 
paper  this:  "One  of  the  pleasantest  incidents  recorded  in 
a  long  time  is  reported  from  Sheffield,  England.  The 
wages  of  the  men  in  the  iron  works  at  Sheffield  are  reg- 
ulated by  a  board  of  arbitration,  by  whose  decision  both 
masters  and  men  are  bound.  For  some  time  past  the 
iron  and  steel  trade  has  been  extremely  unprofitable,  and 
the  employer  cannot,  without  much  loss,  pay  the  wages 
fixed  by  the  board,  which  neither  the  employers  nor  em- 
ployed have  the  power  to  change.  To  avoid  this  diffi- 
culty, the  workmen  in  one  of  the  largest  steel  works  in 
Sheffield  hit  upon  a  device  as  rare   as    it   was  generous. 


WAR  OF  CAPITAL  AND  LABOR.  I  37 

They  offered  to  work  for  their  employers  one  week  with- 
out any  pay  whatever.  How  much  better  that  plan  is 
than  a  strike  would  be." 

MODEL    BUSINESS    HOUSES. 

But  you  go  with  me  and  I  will  show  you — not  so  far 
off  as  Sheffield,  England — factories,  banking  houses, 
store  houses,  and  costly  enterprises  where  this  Christlike 
injunction  of  my  text  is  fully  kept,  and  you  could  no 
more  get  the  employer  to  practice  an  injustice  upon  his 
men,  or  the  men  to  conspire  against  the  employer,  than 
you  could  get  your  right  hand  and  your  left  hand,  your 
right  eye  and  your  left  eye,  your  right  ear  and  your  left 
ear,  into  physiological  antagonism.  Now,  where  is  this 
to  begin?  In  our  homes,  in  our  stores,  on  our  farms — 
not  waiting  for  other  people  to  do  their  duty.  Is  there 
a  divergance  now  between  the  parlor  and  the  kitchen? 
Then  there  is  something  wrong,  either  in  the  parlor  or 
in  the  kitchen,  perhaps  in  both.  Are  the  clerks  in  your 
store  irate  against  the  firm?  Then  there  is  something 
wrong,  either  behind  the  counter,  or  in  the  private  office, 
or  perhaps  in  both. 

A  STORY    OF    GEN.    WASHINGTON. 

The  great  want  of  the  world  to-day  is  the  fulfillment 
of  this  Christlike  injunction,  that  which  He  promulgated 
in  his  sermon  Olivetic.  All  the  political  economists  un- 
der the  archivolt  of  the  heavens  in  convention  for  a 
thousand  years  cannot  settle  this  controversy  between 
monopoly  and  hard  work,  between  capital  and  labor. 
During  the  Revolutionary  war  there  was  a  heavy  piece 
of  timber  to    be  lifted,    perhaps  for   some  fortress,    and  a 


I38  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

corporal  was  overseeing  the  work,    and  he  was  giving  the 
commands  to  some  soldiers  as  they  lifted. 
"Heave  away,  there!  yo  heave!" 

Well,  the  timber  was  too  heavy;  they  could  not  get  if  up. 
There  was  a  gentleman  riding  by  on  a  horse,  and  he  stop- 
ped and  said  to  this  corporal: 

'  'Why  don't  you  help  them  lift?  That  timber  is  too 
heavy  for  them  to  lift." 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  won't;  I  am  a  corporal." 

The  gentleman  got  off  his  horse  and  came  up  to  the 
place.  "Now,"  he  said  to  the  soldiers,  "all  together — 
yo  heave!"  and  the  timber  went  to  its  place.  "Now," 
said  the  gentleman  to  the  corporal,  "when  you  have  a 
piece  of  timber  too  heavy  for  the  men  to  lift,  and  you 
want  help,  you  send  to  your  commander-in-chief. 

It  was  Washington!  Now,  that  is  about  all  the  gospel 
I  know — the  gospel  of  giving  somebody  a  lift  out  of 
earth  into  heaven.  That  is  the  gospel  of  helping  some- 
body else  to  lift. 

SUPPLY  AND    DEMAND   A  FRAUD. 

"Oh,"  says  some  wiseacre,  "talk  as  you  will,  the  law 
of  demand  and  supply  will  regulate  these  things  until  the 
end  of  time."  No,  it  will  not,  unless  God  dies  and  the 
batteries  of  the  judgement  day  are  spiked,  and  Pluto  and 
Proserpine,  king  and  queen  of  the  infernal  regions,  take  full 
possession  of  this  world.  Do  you  know  who  Supply  and 
Demand  are?  They  have  gone  into  partnership,  and  they 
propose  to  swindle  this  earth,  and  are  swindling  it.  You 
are  drowning.  Supply  and  Demand  stand  on  the  shore 
— one  on  one  side,  the  other  on  the  other  side  of  the  life 
boat,  and  they  cry  out  to  you:       'Now,    you  pay  us  what 


WAR  OF  CAPITAL  AND  LABOR.  I  39 

we  ask  you  for  getting  you  to  shore,  or  go  to  the  bottom!" 
If  you  can  borrow  $5,000  you  can  keep  from  failing  in 
business.  Supply  and  Demand  say:  "Now,  you  pay  us 
exorbitant  usury  or  you  go  into  bankruptcy!"  This  rob- 
ber firm  of  Supply  and  Demand  say  to  you:  "The  crops 
are  short.  We  bought  up  all  the  wheat  and  it  is  in  our 
bin.  Now,  you  pay  our  price  or  starve!"  That  is  your 
magnificent  law  of  supply  and  demand. 

Supply  and  Demand  own  the  largest  mill  on  earth,  and 
all  the  rivers  roll  over  their  wheel,  and  into  their  hopper, 
they  put  all  the  men,  women  and  children  they  can  shovel 
out  of  the  centuries,  and  the  blood  and  the  bones  redden 
the  valley  while  the  mill  grinds.  That  diabolic  law  of 
supply  and  demand  will  yet  have  to  stand  aside,  and  in- 
stead thereof  will  come  the  law  of  love,  the  law  of  co- 
operation, the  law  of  kindness,  the  law  of  sympathy,  the 
law  of  Christ. 

RECONCILIATION   IS  PROMISED. 

Have  you  no  idea  of  the  coming  of  such  a  time?  Then 
you  do  not  believe  the  Bible.  All  the  Bible  is  full  of 
promises  on  this  subject,  and  as  the  ages  roll  on,  the 
time  will  come  when  men  of  fortune  will  be  giving  larger 
sums  to  humanitarian  and  evangelistic  purposes,  and 
there  will  be  more  James  Lenoxes,  and  Peter  Coopers, 
and  William  E.  Dodges,  and  George  Peabodys.  As  that 
time  comes  there  will  be  more  parks,  more  picture  gal- 
leries, more  gardens  thrown  open  for  the  holiday  people 
and  the  working  classes. 

I  was  reading  some  time  ago,  in  regard  to  a  charge 
that  had  been  made  in  England  against  Lambeth  palace, 
that  it  was  exclusive;  and   that  charge  demonstrated  the 


I40  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

sublime  fact  that  to  the  grounds  of  that  wealthy  estate 
eight  hundred  poor  families  had  free  passes,  and  forty 
croquet  companies,  and  on  the  the  half  day  holidays  four 
thousand  poor  people  recline  on  the  grass,  walk  through 
the  paths,  and  sit  under  the  trees.  That  is  gospel — 
gospel  on  the  wing,  gospel  out  of  doors,  worth  just  as 
much  as  gospel  in  doors.      That  time  is  going  to  come. 

That  is  only  a  hint  of  what  is  going  to  be.  The  time 
is  going  to  come  when,  if  you  have  anything  in  your 
house  worth  looking  at — pictures,  pieces  of  sculpture — 
you  are  going  to  invite  me  to  come  and  see  it;  you  are 
going  to  invite  my  friends  to  come  and  see  it,  and  you 
will  say,  "See  what  I  have  been  blessed  with!  God  has 
given  me  this,  and,  so  far  as  enjoying  it,  it  is  yours  also.' 
That  is  gospel. 

A  STORY  OF     HENRY  CLAY. 

In  crossing  the  Alleghany  mountains,  many  years  ago, 
the  stage  halted,  and  Henry  Clay  dismounted  from  the 
stage  and  went  out  on  a  rock  at  the  very  verge  of  the 
cliff,  and  he  stood  there  with  his  cloak  wrapped  abou. 
him,  and  he  seemed  to  be  listening  for  something 
Some  one  said  to  him,  "What  are  you  listening  for?" 
Standing  there  on  the  top  of  the  mountain,  he  said:  "I 
am  listening  to  the  tramp  of  the  footsteps  of  the  coming 
millions  of  this  continent."  A  sublime  posture  for  an 
American  statesman!  You  and  I  to-day  stand  on  the 
mountain  top  of  privilege,  and  on  the  rock  of  ages,  and 
we  look  off,  and  we  hear  coming  from  the  future,  the 
happy  industries,  and  smiling  populations,  and  the  con- 
secrated fortunes,  and  the  inumerable  prosperities  of  the 
closing  Nineteenth  and  the    opening  Twentieth    century. 


WAR  OF  CAPITAL  AND  LABOR.  141 

And  now  I  have  two  words,    one   to  capitalists    and    the 
other  to  laboring  men. 

TO  CAPITALISTS. 

To  the  capitalists:  Be  your  own  executors.  Make 
investments  for  eternity.  Do  not  be  like  some  capitalists 
I  know,  who  walk  around  among  their  employes  with  a 
supercilious  air,  or  drive  up  to  the  factory  in  a  manner 
which  seems  to  indicate  they  are  the  autocrats  of  the 
universe,  with  the  sun  and  the  moon  in  their  vest  pockets, 
chiefly  anxious  when  they  go  among  laboring  men,  not  to 
be  touched  by  the  greasy  or  smirched  hand,  and  have 
their  broadcloth  injured.  Be  a  christian  employer. 
Remember  those  who  are  under  their  charge  are  bone  of 
your  bone  and  flesh  of  your  flesh,  that  Jesus  Christ  died 
for  them,  and  that  they^re  immortal.  Divide  up  youi 
estates,  or  portions  of  them,  for  the  relief  of  the  world 
before  you  leave  it.  Do  not  go  out  of  the  world  like  a 
man  who  died  eight  or  ten  years  ago,  leaving  in  his  will 
twenty  million  dollars,  yet  giving,  how  much  for  the 
church  of  God?  How  much  for  the  alleviation  of  human 
sufferings?  He  gave  some  money  a  little  while  before  he 
died.  That  was  well;  but  in  all  this  will  of  twenty  mil- 
lion dollars,  how  much?  One  million?  No.  Five  hun- 
dred thousand?  No.  One  hundred  dollars?  No.  Two 
cents?  No.  One  cent?  No.  These  great  cities  groan- 
ing in  anguish,  nations  crying  out  for  the  bread  of  ever- 
lasting life.  A  man  in  a  will  giving  twenty  millions  of 
dollars,  and  not  one  cent  to  God!  It  is  a  disgrace  to  our 
civilization. 

TO  LABORERS. 

To  laboring  men:  I  congratulate  you  on  your  prospects. 


142  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

I  congratulate  you  on  the  fact  that  you  are  getting  your 
representatives  at  Albany,  at  Harrisburg,  and  at  Wash- 
ington. This  will  go  on  until  you  have  representatives 
at  all  the  headquarters,  and  you  will  have  full  justice. 
Mark  that  I  congratulate  you  also  on  the  opportunities 
for  your  children.  You  children  are  going  to  have  vast 
opportunities.  I  congratulate  you  that  you  have  to 
work,  and  that  when  you  are  dead,  your  children  will 
have  to  work.  I  congratulate  you  also  on  your  oppor- 
tunities of  information  Plato  paid  one  thousand  three 
hundred  dollars  for  two  books.  Jerome  ruined  himself, 
financially,  by  buying  one  volume  of  Origen.  What  vast 
opportunities  for  intelligence  for  you  and  your  children! 
A  workingman  goes  along  by  the  show  window  of  some 
great  publishing  house  and  he  sees  a  book  that  costs  five 
dollars.  He  says,  "I  wish  I  could  have  that  informa- 
tion. I  wish  I  could  raise  five  dollars  for  that  costly  and 
beautiful  book."  A  few  months  pass  on  and  he  gets  the 
value  of  that  book  for  fifty  cents  in  a  pamphlet.  There 
never  was  such  a  day  for  the  workingmen  of  America  as 
the  day  that  is  coming. 

THE  MUTUAL  FRIEND  AND  MEDIATOR. 

But  the  greatest  friend  of  capitalist  and  toiler,  and  the 
one  who  will  yet  bring  them  together  in  complete  accord, 
was  born  one  Christmas  night  while  the  curtains  of  heavens 
swung,  stirred  by  the  winds  angelic.  Owner  of  all  things 
— all  the  continents,  all  worlds,  and  all  the  islands  of 
light.  Capitalist  of  immensity,  crossing  over  to  our  con- 
dition. Coming  into  our  world,  not  by  gate  of  palace, 
but  by  door  of  barn.  Spending  his  first  night  amid  the 
shepherds.       Gathering  afterward  around  him  the  fisher- 


WAR  OF  CAPITAL  AND  LABOR.  1 43 

men  to  be  his  chief  attendants.  With  adze,  and  saw, 
and  chisel,  and  ax,  and  in  a  carpenter  shop  showing  him- 
self brother  with  the  tradesmen.  Owner  of  all  things, 
and  yet  on  a  hillock  back  of  Jerusalem  one  day  resigning 
everything  for  others,  keeping  not  so  much  as  a  shekel 
to  pay  for  his  obsequies.  By  charity  buried  in  the 
suburbs  of  a  city  that  had  cast  him  out.  Before  the 
cross  of  such  a  capitalist,  and  such  a  carpenter,  all  men 
can  afford  to  shake  hands  and  worship.  Here  is  the  every 
man's  Christ.  None  so  high  but  he  was  higher.  None 
so  poor  but  he  was  poorer.  At  his  feet  the  hostile  ex- 
tremes will  yet  renounce  their  animosities,  and  counten- 
ances which  have  glowered  with  predjudices  and  revenge 
of  centuries  shall  brighten  with  the  smile  of  heaven  as 
he  commands:  *  'Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should 
do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them. " 


HUMDRUM      OF      THE      CHURCHES. 
OR 
LUGUBRIOUS  CHRISTIANITY. 


"Of  spices  great  abundance;  neither  was  there  any  such  spice  as  the 
Queen  of  Sheba  gave  King  Solomon.  II  chronicles  ix,  q. 

hat  is  that  building  out  yonder  glittering  in  the 
sun?  Have  you  not  heard?  It  is  the  house 
of  the  forest  of  Lebanon.  King  Solomon  has 
just  taken  to  it  his  bride,  the  princess  of  Egypt.  You 
see  the  pillars  ot  the  portico,  and  a  great  tower,  adorn- 
ed with  one  thousand  shields  of  gold,  hung  on  the 
outside  of  the  tower — five  hundred  of  the  shields  of  gold 
manufactured  at  Solomon's  order,  five  hundred  were 
captured  by  David,  his  father,  in  battle.  See  how  they 
blaze  in  the  noonday  sun. 

Solomon  goes  up  to  the  ivory  stairs  of  his  throne  be- 
tween twelve  lions  in  statuary,  and  sits  down  on  the 
back  of  the  golden  bull,  the  head  of  the  bronze  beast 
turned  toward  the  people.  The  family  and  attendants 
of  the  king  are  so  many  that  the  caterers  of  the  place 
have  to  provide  every  day  one  hundred  sheep  and  thir- 
teen oxen,  besides  the  birds  and  the  venison.  I  hear  the 
stamping  and  pawing  of  four  thousand  fine  horses  in  the 
royal  stables.  They  were  important  officials  who  had 
charge  of  the  work  of  gathering  the  straw  and  the  bar- 
ley for  these  horses.  King  Solomon  was  an  early  riser, 
tradition  says,  and  used  to  take  a  ride  out    at   daybreak, 

[H4] 


LUGUBRIOUS     CHRISTIANITY.  145 

and  when  in  his  white  apparel,  behind  the  swiftest 
horses  of  all  the  realm,  and  followed  by  mounted  archers 
in  purple,  as  the  cavalcade  dashed  through  the  streets  of 
Jerusalem  I  suppose  it  was  something  worth  getting  up 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  look  at. 

Solomon  was  not  like  some  of  the  kings  of  the  present 
day — crowned  imbecility.  All  the  splendor  of  his  place 
and  retinue  was  eclipsed  by  his  intellectual  power.  Why 
he  seemed  to  know  everything.  He  was  the  first  great 
naturalist  the  world  ever  saw.  Peacocks  from  India 
strutted  the  basaltic  walk,  and  apes  chattered  in 
the  trees  and  deer  stalked  the  parks,  and  there  were 
aquariums  with  foreign  fish  and  aviaries  with  foreign 
birds,  and  tradition  says  these  birds  were  so  well  tamed 
that  Solomon  might  walk  clear  across  the  city  under  the 
shadow  of  their  wings  as  they  hovered  and  flitted  about 
him. 

SOLOMON  AND  HIS  RIDDLES. 

More  than  this,  he  had  a  great  reputation  for  the 
conundrums  and  riddles  that  he  made  and  guessed.  He 
and  King  Hiram  his  neighbor,  used  to  sit  by  the  hour  and 
ask  riddles,  each  one  paying  in  money  if  he  could  not 
answer  or  guess  the  riddle.  The  Solomonic  navy  visited 
all  the  world,  and  the  sailors,  of  course,  talked  about 
the  wealth  of  their  king,  and  about  the  riddles  and 
enigmas  that  he  made  and  solved,  and  the  news  spread 
until  Queen  Balkis,  away  down  south,  heard  of  it,  and 
sent  messengers  with  a  few  riddles  that  she  would  like 
to  have  Solomon  solve,  and  a  few  puzzles  which  she 
would  like  to  have  him  find  out.  She  sent  among  other 
things  to  King  Solomon  a  diamond  with  a  hole    so   small 


.146  EV7LS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

that  a  needle  would  not  penetrate  it,  asking  him  to 
thread  that  diamond.  Solomon  took  a  worm  and  put 
it  at  the  opening  in  the  diamond,  and  the  worm  crawled 
through,  leaving  the  thread  in  the  diamond. 

The  queen  also  sent  a  goblet  to  Solomon,  asking  him 
to  fill  it  with  water  that  did  not  pour  from  the  sky,  and 
that  did  not  rush  out  from  the  earth,  and  immediately 
Solomon  put  a  slave  on  the  back  of  a  swilt  horse  and 
galloped  him  around  and  around  the  park  until  the 
horse  was  nigh  exhausted,  and  from  the  perspiration  of  the 
horse  the  goblet  was  filled.  She  also  sent  King  Solomon 
five  hundred  boys  in  girls'  dress,  and  five  hundred 
girls  in  boys'  dress,  wondering  if  he  would  be  acute 
enough  to  find  out  the  deception.  Immediately  Solo- 
mon, when  he  saw  them  wash  their  faces,  knew  from 
the  way  they  applied  the  water  it  was  all  a  cheat. 

THE  VISIT  OF    THE  QUEEN. 

Queen  Balkis  was  so  pleased  with  the  acuteness  of 
Solomon  that  she  said,  "I'll  just  go  and  see  him  for  my- 
self." Yonder  it  comes — the  cavalcade — horses  and 
dromedaries,  chariots  and  charioteers,  jingling  harness 
and  clattering  hoofs,  and  blazing  'shields,  and  flying 
ensigns,  and  clapping  cymbals.  The  place  is  saturated 
with  perfumes  She  brings  cinnamon  and  saffron  and 
calamus  and  frankincense  and  all  manner  of  sweet  spices. 
As  the  retinue  sweeps  through  the  gate  the  armed  guard 
inhale  the  aroma.  "Halt!"  cry  the  charioteers,  as  the 
wheels  grind  the  gravel  in  front  of  the  pillard  portico  of 
the  king.  Queen  Balkis  alights  in  an  atmosphere  be- 
witching with  perfume.  As  the  dromedaries  are  driven 
up  to  the  king's  storehouses,  and  the  bundles  of  camphor 


LUGUBRIOUS    CHRISTIANITY.  I47 

are  unloaded,  and  the  sacks  of  cinnamon,  and  the  boxes 
of  spices  are  opened,  the  purveyors  of  the  place 
discover  what  my  text  announces,  "Of  spices,  great 
abundance;  neither  was  there  any  such  spices  as  the 
Queen  of  Sheba  gave  to  King  Solomon." 

Well,  my  friends,  you  know  that  all  theologians  agree 
in  making  Solomon  a  type  of  Christ,  and  making  the 
Queen  of  Sheba  a  type  of  every  truth  seeker,  and  I 
shall  take  the  responsibility  of  saying  that  all  the 
spikenard  and  cassia  and  frankincense  which  the  Queen 
of  Sheba  brought  to  King  Solomon  are  mightily  sugges- 
tive of  the  sweet  spice  of  our  holy  religion.  Christianity 
is  not  a  collections  of  sharp  technicalities  and  angular 
facts  and  chronological  tables  and  dry  statistics.  Our 
religion  is  compared  to  frankincense  and  to  cassia,  but 
never  to  nightshade.  It  is  a  bundle  of  myrrh.  It  is  a 
dash  of  holy  light.  It  is  an  opening  of  opaline  gates. 
It  is  a  collection  of  spices.  Would  to  God  that  we 
were  as  wise  in  taking  spices  to  our  Divine  King  as 
Queen  Balkis  was  wise  in  taking  the  spices  to  the  earthly 
Solomon!  What  many  of  us  most  need  is  to  have  the 
humdrum  driven  out  of  our  life  and  the  humdrum  out  of 
our  religion.  The  American  and  English  and  Scottish 
church  will  die  of  humdrum  unless  there  be  a  change. 

PEOPLE  DO  NOT  GO  TO  CHURCH  BECAUSE  THEY  CANNOT 
STAND      THE      HUMDRUM. 

An  editor  from  San  Francisco  a  few  weeks  ago  wrote 
me  saying  he  was  getting  up  for  his  paper  a  symposium 
from  many  clergymen,  discussing  among  other  things 
"Why  do  not  people  goto  church?"  and  he  wanted  my 
opinion,  and  I  gave  it  in  one  sentence,    "People    do   not 


14^  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

go  to  church  because  they  cannot  stand  the  humdrum.  * 
The  fact  is  that  most  people  have  so  much  humdrum  in 
their  wordly  calling  that  they  do  not  want  to  have  added  the 
humdrum  of  religion.  We  need  in  all  our  sermons  the 
exhortations  and  songs  and  prayers  more  of  what  Queen 
Balkis  brought  to  Solomon — namely,  more  spice. 

The  fact  is  that  the  duties  and  cares  of  this  life,  com- 
ing to  us  from  time  to  time,  are  stupid  often  and  insane 
and  intolerable.  Here  are  men  who  have  been  bartering 
and  negotiating,  climbing,  pounding,  hammering  for 
twenty  years,  forty  years,  fifty  years.  One  great  long 
drudgery  has  their  life  been.  Their  faces,  anxious,  their 
feelings  benumbed,  their  days  monotonous.  What  is 
necessary  to  brighten  up  that  man's  life,  and  to  sweeten 
that  acid  disposition,  and  to  put  sparkle  into  the  mans 
spirits?  The  spicery  of  our  holy  religion.  Why,  if  be- 
tween the  loss  of  life  there  dashed  a  gleam  of  an  eternal 
gain;  if  between  the  betrayals  of  life  there  came  the 
the  gleam  of  the  undying  friendship  of  Christ;  if  in  dull 
times  in  business  we  found  ministering  spirits  flying  to 
and  fro  in  our  office  and  store  and  shop,  everyday  life, 
instead  of  being  a  stupid  monotone,  would  be  a  glorious 
inspiration,  penduluming  between  calm  satisfaction  and 
high  rapture. 

HOW  TO  KEEP  HOUSE  PROPERLY. 

How  any  woman  keeps  house  without  the  religion  of 
Christ  to  help  her  is  a  mystery  to  me.  To  have  to  spend 
the  greater  part  of  one's  life,  as  many  women  do,  in 
planning  for  the  meals,  in  stitching  garments  that  will 
soon  be  rent  again,  and  deploring  breakages,  and  sup- 
ervising tardy    subordinates,  and    driving   off   dust   that 


LUGUBRIOUS      CHRISTIANITY.  1 49 

soon  again  will  settle,  and  doing  the  same  thing  day 
in  and  day  out,  and  year  in  and  year  out,  until  their 
hair  silvers'  and  the  back  stoops,  and  the  spectacles 
crawl  to  the  eyes,  and  the  grave  breaks  open  nnder  the 
thin  sole  of  the  shoe — oh,  it  is  a  long  monotony!  But 
when  Christ  comes  to  the  drawing  room,  and  comes  to 
the  kitchen,  and  comes  to  the  nursery,  and  comes  to  the 
dwelling,  then  how  cheery  becomes  all  woman's  duties. 
She  is  never  alone  now;  Martha  gets  through  fretting, 
and  joins  Mary  at  the  feet  of  Jesus. 

All  day  long  Deborah  is  happy  because  she  can  help 
Lapidoth;  Hannah,  because  she  can  make  a  coat  for 
young  Samuel;  Miriam,  because  she  can  watch  her  in- 
fant brother;  Rachel,  because  she  can  help  her  father 
water  the  stock;  the  widow  of  Sarepta,  because  the  cruse 
of  oil  is  being  replenished.  O  woman!  having  in  your 
pantry  a  nest  of  boxes  containing  all  kinds  of  condiment, 
why  have  you  not  tried  in  your  heart  and  life  the  spicery 
of  our  holy  religion?  ' 'Martha!  Martha!  thou  are  care- 
ful and  troubled  about  many  things;  but  one  thing  is 
needful,  and  Mary  hath  chosen  that  good  part  which 
shall  not  be  taken  away  from  her. 

LUGUBRIOUS  CHRISTIANITY,  MORE    HARMFUL  THAN 
ALL  THE  BOOKS  OF  INFIDELITY. 

I  must  confess  that  a  great  deal  of  religion  of  this  day 
is  utterly  insipid.  There  is  nothing  piquant  or  elevating 
about  it.  Men  and  women  go  around  humming  psalms 
in  a  minor  key,  and  culturing  melancholy,  and  their 
worship  has  in  it  more  sighs  than  rapture.  We  do  not 
doubt  their  piety.  Oh,  no.  But  they  are  sitting  at  a 
feast  where  the  cook  has  forgotten   to   season   the   food. 


150  EVILS  OF  THE  CITfES. 

Everything  is  flat  in  their  experience  and  in  their  con- 
versation. Emancipated  from  sin  and  death  and  hell, 
and  on  their  way  to  a  magnificent  heaven,  they  act  as 
though  they  were  trudging  on  toward  an  .everlasting 
Botany  bay.  Religion  does  not  seem  to  agree  with  them. 
It  seems  to  catch  in  the  windpipe,  and  becomes  a  tight 
strangulation,  instead  of  an  exhilaration. 

All  the  infidel  books  that  have  been  written,  from 
Voltaire  down  to  Herbert  Spencer,  have  not  done  so 
much  damage  to  our  Christianity  as  lugubrious  Chris- 
tians. Who  wants  a  religion  woven  out  of  the  shadows 
of  the  night?  Why  go  growling  on  your  way  to  celestial 
enthronement?  Come  out  of  that  cave  and  sit  down  in 
the  warm  light  of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness.  Away  with 
your  odes  to  melancholy  and  Hervey's  ''Meditations 
Among  the  Tombs." 

Then  let  our  songs  abound, 

And  every  tear  be  dry; 
We're  marching  through  Emmanuel's  ground 

To  fairer  world's  on  high. 

MORE  SPICE  YE  CHRISTIAN  TEACHERS ! 

T  have  to  say,  also,  that  we  need  to  put  more  spice 
and  enlivenment  in  our  religious  teaching,  whether  it  be 
in  the  prayer  meeting,  or  in  the  Sabbath  school,  or  in 
the  church.  We  ministers  need  more  fresh  air  and  sun- 
shine in  our  lungs  and  our  heart  and  our  head.  Do  you 
wonder  that  the  world  is  so  far  from  being  converted 
when  you  find  so  little  vivacity  in  the  pulpit  and  in  the 
pew?  We  want,  like  the  Lord,  to  plant  in  our  sermons, 
and  exhortations,  more  lilies  of  the  field.  We  want 
fewer  rhetorical  elaborations,  and    fewer    sesquipedalian 


LUGUBRIOUS      CHRISTIANITY.  1 5 1 

words,  and  when  we  talk  about  shadows,  we  do  not 
want  to  say  adumbrations;  and  when  we  mean  queer- 
ness,  we  do  not  want  to  talk  about  idiosyncracies;  or  if 
a  stitch  in  the  back,  we  do  not  want  to  talk  of  lumbago, 
but  in  the  plain  vernacular,  preach  that  gospel  which 
proposes  to  make  all  men  happy,  honest,  victorious,  and 
free. 

In  other  words,  we  want  more  cinnamon  and  less 
gristle.  Let  this  be  so  in  all  the  different  departments 
of  work  to  which  the  Lord  calls  us.  Let  us  be  plain. 
Let  us  be  earnest.  Let  us  be  common  sensical.  When 
we  talk  to  people  in  a  vernacular  they  can  understand 
they  will  be  very  glad  to  come  and  receive  the  truth  we 
represent.  Would  to  God  that  Queen  Balkis  would 
drive  her  spice  laden  dromedaries  into  all  our  sermons, 
and  prayer  meeting  exhortations. 

MORE  SPICE  YE  CHRISTIAN    WORKERS! 

More  than  that,  we  want  more  life  and  spice  in  our 
Christian  work.  The  poor  do  not  want  so  much  to  be 
groaned  over  as  sung  to.  With  the  bread  and  medi- 
cines and  the  garments  you  give  them,  let  there  be  an 
accompaniment  of  smiles  and  brisk  encouragement. 
Do  not  stand  and  talk  to  them  about  the  wretchedness 
of  their  abode,  and  the  hunger  of  their  looks,  and  the 
hardness  of  their  lot.  Ah!  they  know  it  better  than 
you  can  tell  them.  Show  them  the  bright  side  of  the 
thing,  if  there  be  any  bright  side.  Tell  them  good  times 
will  come.  Tell  them  that  for  the  children  of  God  there 
is  immortal  rescue.  Wake  them  up  out  of  their  stolidity 
by  an  inspiring  laugh,  and  while  you  send  in  help,  like 
the  Queen  of  Sheba  also  send  in  the  spices. 


I  52  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

There  are  two  ways  of  meeting  the  poor.  One  way  is 
to  come  into  their  house  with  a  nose  elevated  in  disgust, 
as  much  as  to  say: 

'I  don't  see  how  you  live  here  in  this  neighborhood. 
It  actually  makes  me  sick.  There  is  that  bundle;  take 
it,  you  poor,  miserable  wretch,  and  make  the  most  of  it." 
Another  way  is  to  go  into  the  abode  of  the  poor  in  a 
manner  which  seems  to  say: 

"The  blessed  Lord  sent  me.  He  was  poor  Himself. 
It  is  not  more  for  the  good  I  am  going  to  try  to  do  you 
than  it  is  for  the  good  you  can  do  me."  Coming  in  that 
spirit  the  gift  will  be  as  aromatic  as  the  spikenard  on  the 
feet  of  Christ,  and  all  the  hovels  in  that  alley  will  be 
fragrant  with  spice. 

MORE  SPICE  YE  CHRISTIAN  SINGERS. 

We  need  more  spice  and  enlivenment  in  our  church 
music.  Churches  sit  discussing  whether  they  shall  have 
choirs,  or  precentors,  or  organs,  or  bass  viols,  or  cornets. 
I  say,  take  that  which  will  bring  out  the  most  inspiring- 
music.  If  we  had  half  as  much  zeal  and  spirit  in  our 
churches  as  we  have  in  the  songs  of  our  Sabbath  schools 
it  would  not  be  long  before  the  whole  earth  would  quake 
with  the  coming  of  God.  Why  in  most  churches  nine- 
tenths  of  the  people  do  not  sing,  or  they  sing  so  feebly 
the  people  at  their  elbows  do  not  know  they  are  singing. 
People  mouth  and  mumble  the  praises  of  God;  but  there 
is  not  more  than  one  out  of  a  hundred  who  makes  "a 
joyful  noise"  unto  the  Rock  of  our  salvation.  Some- 
times, when  the  congregation  forgets  itself,  and  is  all 
absorbed  in  the  goodness  of  God  or  the  glories  of  heaven, 


LUGUBRIOUS       CHRISTIANITY.  1 53 

I  get  an  intimation  of  what  church  music  will  be  a  hun- 
dred years  from  now,  when  the  coming  generation  shall 
wake  up  to  its  duty. 

WAKE     UP. 

I  promise  a  high  spiritual  blessing  to  any  one  who  will 
sing  in  church,  and  who  will  sing  so  heartly  that  the 
people  all  round  can  not  help  but  sing.  Wake  up!  all 
the  churches  from  Bangor  to  San  Fransisco  and  across 
Christendom.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  preference,  it  is  a 
matter  of  religious  duty.  Oh,  for  fifty  times  more  vol- 
ume of  sounds.  German  chorals  in  German  cathedrals 
surpass  us,  and  yet  Germany  has  received  nothing  at 
the  hands  of  God  compared  with  America;  and  ought 
the  acclaim  in  Berlin  be  louder  than  that  in  Brooklyn? 
Soft  long  drawn  out  music  is  appropriate  for  the  drawing 
room  and  appropriate  for  the  concert,  but  St  John  gives 
an  idea  of  the  sonorous  and  resonant  congregational 
singing  appropriate  for  churches  when,  in  listening  to 
the  temple  service  of  heaven,  he  says:  "I  heard  a 
great  voice,  as  the  voice  of  a  great  multitude,  and  as  the 
voice  of  many  waters,  and  as  the  voice  of  many  thunder- 
ings:  Hallelujah,  for  the  Lord  God  omnipotent  reign- 
eth." 

Join  with  me  in  a  crusade,  giving  me  not  only  your 
hearts  but  the  mighty  up  lifting  of  our  voices,  and  I 
believe  we  can,  through  Christ's  grace,  sing  fifty  thou- 
sand souls  into  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  An  argument, 
they  can  laugh  at,  a  sermon,  they  can  talk  down,  but  a 
vast  audience  joining  in  one  anthem  is  irresistible. 
Would  that  Queen  Balkis  would  drive  all  her  spice  laden 
dromedaries  into  our  church  music.      "Neither  was  there 


154  EVILS   OF   THE    CITIES 

any  such  spice  as  the  Queen  of    Sheba  gave    King    Solo- 
mon." 

TRUE  RELIGION  IS  ALL  THE  SWEET     SPICES  TOGETHER. 

Now,  I  want  to  impress  this  audience  with  the  fact 
that  religion  is  sweetness  and  perfume  and  spinkenard 
and  saffron  and  cinnamon  and  cassia  and  frankincense, 
and  all  sweet  spices  together.  "Oh,"  you  say,  "I  have 
not  looked  at  it  as  such.  I  thought  it  was  a  nuisance; 
it  had  forme  a  repulsion;  I  held  my  breath  as  though  it 
were  malodor;  I  have  been  appalled  at  its  advance;  I 
have  said,  if  I  have  any  religion  at  all,  I  want  to  have 
just  as  little  of  it  as  is  possible  to  get  through  with."  Oh 
what  a  mistake  you  have  made,  my  brother.  The  re- 
ligion of  Christ  is  a  present  and  everlasting  redolence. 
It  counteracts  all  trouble.  Just  put  it  on  the  stand  be- 
side the  pillow  of  sickness.  It  catches  in  the  curtains 
and  perfumes  the  stifling  air.  It  sweetens  the  cup  of 
bitter  medicine,  and  throws  a  glow  on  the  gloom  of  the 
turned  lattice.  It  is  a  balm  for  the  aching  side,  and  a 
soft  bandage  for  the  temple  stung  with  pain. 

It  lifted  Samuel  Rutherford  into  a  revelry  of  spiritual 
delight  while  he  was  in  physical  agonies.  It  helped 
Richard  Baxter  until,  in  the  midst  of  such  a  complica- 
tion of  diseases  as  perhaps  no  other  man  ever  suffered, 
he  wrote  "The  Saint's  Everlasting  Rest."  And  it  pour- 
ed light  upon  John  Bunyan's  dungeon — the  light  of  the 
shining  gate  of  the  shining  city.  And  it  is  good  for 
rheumatism,  and  for  neuralgia,  and  for  low  spirits,  and 
for  consumption;  it  is  the  catholicon  for  all  disorders. 
Yes,  it  will  heal  all  your  sorrows. 

Why  did  you  look  so  sad   to-day    when  you  came   in? 


LUGUBRIOUS  CHRISTIANITY.  I  55 

Alas!  for  the  loneliness  and  the  heartbreak,  and  the  load 
that  is  never  lifted  from  your  soul.  Some  of  you  go 
about  feeling  like  Macaulay  when  he  wrote,  "If  I  had 
another  month  of  such  days  as  I  have  been  spending,  I 
would  be  impatient  to  get  down  into  my  little  narrow 
crib  in  the  ground  like  a  weary  factory  child."  And  there 
have  been  times  in  your  life  when  you  wished  you  could 
get  out  of  this  life.  You  have  said,  "Oh,  how  sweet  to 
my  lips  would  be  the  dust  of  the  valley,"  and  wished  you 
could  pull  over  you  in  your  last  slumber,  the  coverlet  of 
green  grass  and  daisies.  You  have  said,  "Oh  how 
beautifully  quiet  it  must  be  in  the  tomb.  I  wish  I  was 
there."  I  see  all  around  about  me  widowhood  and  orphan- 
age and  childlessness;  sadness,  disapointment,  perplexity. 
If  I  could  ask  all  those  to  rise  in  this  audience  who  have 
felt  no  sorrow,  and  been  buffeted  by  no  disapointment — 
if  I  could  ask  all  such  to  rise,  how  many  would  rise? 
Not  one. 

A  widowed  mother  with  her  little  child  went  west, 
hoping  to  get  better  wages  there,  and  she  was  taken  sick 
and  died.  The  overseer  oi  the  poor  got  her  body  and 
put  it  in  a  box,  and  put  it  in  a  wagon,  and  started  down 
the  street  toward  the  cemetery  at  full  trot.  The  little 
child — the  only  child — ran  after  it  through  the  streets 
bareheaded  crying,  "Bring  me  back  my  mother!  bring 
me  back  my  mother!"  And  it  is  said  that  as  the  people 
looked  on  and  saw  her  crying  after  that  which  lay  in  the 
box  in  the  wagon — all  she  loved  on  earth — it  is  said  the 
whole  village  was  in  tears.  And  that  is  what  a  great 
many  of  you  are  doing — chasing  the  dead.  Dear  Lord, 
is  there  no  appeasement   for   all    this  sorrow  that  I   see 


I  56  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

about  me?  Yes,  the  thought  of  resurrection,  and  re- 
union, far  beyond  this  scene  of  struggle  and  tears. 
"They  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any  more, 
neither  shall  the  sun  light  on  them,  nor  any  heat;  for 
the  Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  lead 
them  to  living  fountains  of  water,  and  God  shall  wipe 
away  all  tears  from  their  eyes." 

A  SHOWER  OF  SPICES  AND  A  STORY. 

"Across  the  couches  of  your  sick,  and  across  the  graves  of 
your  dead  I  fling  this  shower  of  sweet  spices.  Queen 
Balkis,  driving  up  to  the  pillared  portico  of  the  house  of 
cedar,  carried  on  such  pungency  of  perfume  as  exhales 
to-day  from  the  Lord's  garden.  Itis  peace.  It  is  sweet- 
ness. It  is  comfort.  It  is  infinite  satisfaction,  this 
Gospel  I  commend  to  you.  Some  one  could  not  under- 
stand why  an  old  German  Christian  scholar  used  to  be 
always  so  calm,  and  happy  and  hopeful,  when  he  had  so 
many  trials,  and  sickness  and  ailments.  A  man  secreted 
himself  in  the  house.  He  said,  "I  mean  to  watch  this 
old  scholar  and  christian;"  and  he  saw  the  old  Christian 
man  go  to  his  room  and  sit  down  on  the  chair  beside  the 
stand  and  open  the  Bible  and  begin  to  read.  He  reads 
on,  and  on,  chapter  after  chapter,  hour  after  hour,  until 
his  face  was  all  aglow  with  tidings  from  heaven,  and 
when  the  clock  struck  twelve,  he  arose  and  shut  his 
Bible,  and  said:  "Blessed  Lord,  we  are  on  the  same  old 
terms  yet.      Goodnight.  Good  night." 

Oh,  you  sin  parched  and  trouble  pounded,  here  is 
comfort,  here  is  satisfaction.  Will  you  come  and  get 
it?  I  cannot  tell  you  what  the  Lord  offers  you  hereafter, 
so  well  as  I  can  tell  you  now.  "It  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  we  shall  be. 


LUGUBRIOUS  CHRISTIANITY.  I  57 

Have  you  heard  of  the  Taj  Mahal  in  India,  in  some 
respects  the  most  majestic  building  on  earth?  Twenty 
thousand  men  were  twenty  years  building  it.  It  cost 
abont  sixteen  millions  of  dollars.  The  walls  are  of 
marble,  inlaid  with  carnelian  from  Bagdad,  and  turquois 
from  Thibet,  and  jasper  from  the  Punjaub,  and  amethyst 
from  Persia,  and  all  manner  of  precious  stones.  A 
traveler  sa>s,  that  it  seems  to  him  like  the  shining  of  an 
enchanted  castle  of  burnished  silver.  The  walls  are  two 
hundred  and  forty-five  feet  high,  and  from  the  top  of 
these  springs  a  dome  thirty  more  feet  high,  that  dome 
containing  the  most  wonderful  echo  the  world  has  ever 
known,  so  that  ever  and  anon  travelers,  standing  below 
with  flutes,  and  drums  and  harps,  are  testing  that  echo, 
and  the  sounds  from  below  strike  up,  and  then  come 
down,  as  it  were,  the  voices  of  angels  all  around  about 
the  building.  There  is  around  it  a  garden  of  tamarind, 
and  banyan,  and  palm,  and  all  the  floral  glories  of  the 
ransacked  earth. 

But  that  is  only  a  tomb  of  a  dead  empress,  and  it  is 
tame  compared  with  the  grandeurs  which  God  has 
builded  for  your  living  and  immortal  spirit.  Oh,  home 
of  the  blessed!  Foundations  of  gold!  Arches  of  victory! 
Capstones  of  praise!  And  a  dome  in  which  there  are 
echoing  and  re-echoing,  the  hallelujahs  of  the  ages.  And 
around  about  that  mansion  is  a  garden — the  garden  of 
God — and  all  the  springing  fountains  are  the  bottled 
tears  of  the  church  in  the  wilderness,  and  all  the  crim. 
son  of  flowers  is  the  deep  hue  that  was  caught  up  from 
the  carnage  of  earthly  martyrdoms,  and  the  fragrance  is 
the  prayers  of  all  the    saints,  and    the    aroma   puts    into 


158  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

utter  forgetfulness  the  cassia  and  the  spikenard,  and  the 
frankincense,  and  the  world  renowned  spices  which  the 
Queen  Balkis,  of  Abyssinia,  flung  at  the  feet  of  King 
Solomon. 

When  shall  these  eyes  thy  heaven   built  walls. 

And  pearly  gates  behold, 
Thy  bulwarks,  with  salvation  strong, 

And  streets  of  shining  gold? 

Through  obduracy  on  our  part,  and  through  the  rejec- 
tion of  that  Christ  who  makes  heaven  possible,  I 
wonder  if  any  of  us  will  miss  that  spectacle?  I  fear! 
I  fear!  The  queen  of  the  south  will  rise  up  in  judgment 
against  this  generation  and  condemn  it,  because  she 
came  from  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  to  hear  the 
wisdom  of  Solomon,  and  behold  a  greater  than  Solomon 
is  here!  May  God  grant  that  through  your  own  practi- 
cal experience  you  may  find  that  religion's  ways  are 
ways  of  pleasantness,  and  that  all  her  paths,  are  paths 
of  peace — that  it  is  perfume  now  and  perfume  for- 
ever. "And  there  was  an  abundance  of  spice;  neither 
was  there  any  such  spice  as  the  Queen  of  Sheba  gave  to 
King  Solomon." 


TOO  MUCH  THEORY,  NOT  ENOUGH  GOOD 
WORKS  IN  CHURCHES. 

"Faith    without  works,  is  dead."     James  n,  26. 

>he    Romam   Catholic  church    has   been   charged 
^'with    putting  too   much   stress  upon  good  works, 

"^  and  not  enough  upon  faith.  I  charge  Protest- 
antism with  putting  not  enough  stress  upon  good  works 
as  connected  with  salvation.  Good  works  will  never  save 
a  man,  but  if  a  man  have  not  good  works  he  has  no  real 
faith  and  no  genuine  religion.  There  are  those  who  de- 
pend upon  the  fact  that  they  are  all  right  inside,  while 
their  conduct  is  right  outside.  Their  religion,  for  the 
part,  is  made  up  of  talk — vigorous  talk,  fluent  talk, 
boastful  talk,  perpetual  talk.  They  will  entertain  you 
by  the  hour  in  telling  you  how  good  they  are.  They 
come  up  to  such  a  higher  life  that  we  have  rio  patience 
with  ordinary  Christians  in  the  plain  discharge  of  their 
duty.  As  near  as  I  can  tell,  this  ocean  craft  is  mostly 
sail,  and  very  little  tonnage.  Foretopmast  staysail,  fore- 
topmast  studding  sail,  maintopmast,  mizzentop  sail — 
everything  from  flying  jib  to  mizzen  spanker,  but  making 
no  useful  voyage.  Now  the  world  has  got  tired  of  this, 
and  it  wants  a  religion  that  will  work  into  all  the  circum. 
stances  of  life.  We  do  not  want  a  new  religion,  but  the 
old  religion  in  all  possible  directions. 

Yonder  is  a    river  with   steep   and  rocky  banks,  and  it 
roars  like  a  young  Niagara,  as   it  rolls  on    over  its  rough, 
bed.        It    does    nothing  but  talk  about  itself  all  the  way 

[159] 


l6o  EVILS  OF  VHE  CITIES. 

from  its  source  in  the  mountain  to  the  place  where  it 
empties  into  the  sea.  The  banks  are  so  steep  the  cattle 
cannot  come  down  to  drink.  It  does  not  run  one  fertil- 
izing rill  into  the  adjoining  field.  It  has  not  one  grist 
mill  or  factory  on  either  side.  It  sulks  in  rainy  weather 
with  chilly  fogs.  No  one  cares  when  that  river  is  born 
among  the  rocks,  and  no  one  cares  when  it  dies  into  the 
sea.  But  yonder  is  another  river,  and  it  mosses  its 
banks  with  the  warm  tides,  and  it  rocks  with  floral  lul- 
laby the  water  lillies  asleep  on  its  bosom.  It  invites 
herds  of  cattle,  and  flocks  of  sheep,  and  coveys  of  birds 
to  come  there  and  drink.  It  has  three  grist  mills  on  one 
side  and  six  cotton  factories  on  'the  other.  It  is  the 
wealth  of  two  hundred  miles  of  luxuriant  farms.  The 
birds  of  heaven  chanted  when  it  was  born  in  the  moun- 
tains, and  the  ocean  shipping  will  press  in  from  the  sea 
to  hail  it  as  it  comes  down  to  the  Atlantic  coast.  The 
one  river  is  a  man  who  lives  for  himself,  the  other  river 
is  a  man  who  lives  for  others. 

HOW  JERUSALEM  IS  SAID  TO    HAVE    GOT    ITS  SITE. 

Do  you  know  how  the  site  of  the  ancient  city  of  Jeru- 
salem was  chosen?  There  were  two  brothers  who  had 
adjoining  farms.  The  one  brother  had  a  large  family, 
the  other  had  no  family.  The  brother  with  a  large  family 
said:  "There  is  my  brother  with  no  family;  he  must  be 
lonely,  and  I  will  try  to  cheer  him  up,  and  I  will  take 
some  of  the  sheaves  from  my  field  in  the  night  time  and 
set  them  over  on  his  farm  and  say  nothing  about  it." 

The  other  brother  said,  '  'My  brother  has  a  large  family, 
and  it  is  very  difficult  for  him  to  support  them,  and  I  will 
help  him  along,  and  I  will  take  some  of  the  sheaves  from 


TOO    MUCH    THEORY.  l6l 

my  own  farm  in  the  night  time  and  set  them  over  on  his 
farm  and  say  nothing  about  it." 

So  the  work  of  transference  went  on  night  after  night, 
and  night  after  night,  but  every  morning  things  seemed  to 
be  just  as  they  were,  for  though  sheaves  had  been  subtract- 
ed from  each  farm,  sheaves  had  also  been  added,  and  the 
brothers  were  perplexed,  and  could  not  understand. 
But  one  night  the  brothers  happened  to  meet  while  mak- 
ing this  generous  transference,  and  the  spot  where  they 
met  was  so  sacred  that  it  was  chosen  as  the  site  of  the 
city  of  Jerusalem.  If  that  tradition  should  prove  un- 
founded, it  will  nevertheless  stand  as  a  beautiful  allegory 
setting  forth  the  idea  that  wherever  a  kindly,  and  gen- 
erous, and  loving  act  is  performed,  that  is  the  spot  fit  for 
some  temple  of  commemoration. 

GOOD  WORKS  WILL  KILL    BUSINESS  FRAUD. 

I  have  often  spoken  to  you  about  faith,  but  now  I 
speak  to  you  about  works,  for  "faith  without  works  is 
dead."  I  think  you  will  agree  with  me  in  the  statement 
that  the  great  want  of  the  world  is  more  practical  religion. 
We  want  practical  religion  to  go  into  all  merchandise. 
It  will  supervise  the  labeling  of  goods.  It  will  not  allow 
a  man  to  say  a  thing  was  made  in  one  factory,  when  it 
was  made  in  another.  It  will  not  allow  the  merchant  to 
say  that  watch  was  manufactured  in  Geneva,  Switzer- 
land, when  it  was  manufactured  in  Massachusetts.  It 
will  not  allow  the  merchant  to  say  that  wine  came  from 
Madeira,  when  it  came  from  California.  Practical  re- 
ligion will  walk  along  by  the  store  shelves,  and  tear  off 
all  the  tags  that  make  misrepresentation.  It  will  not 
allow  the  merchant  to  say  that  is  pure  coffee,  when  dan- 


ID2  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

delion  root,  and  chicory,  and  other  ingredients  go  into 
it.  It  will  not  allow  him  to  say  that  is  pure  sugar,  when 
there  are  in  it  sand  and  ground  glass. 

PRACTICAL  RELIGION  WILL    SET  THINGS     ALL  RIGHT  IN  THE 
GROCERY  STORE. 

When  practical  religion  gets  its  full  swing  in  the 
world  it  will  go  down  the  streets,  and  it  will  come  to 
that  shoe  store,  and  rip  off  the  fictitious  soles  of  many  a 
fine  looking  pair  of  shoes,  or  show  that  it  is  pasteboard, 
sandwiched  between  the  sound  leather.  And  this  practi- 
cal religion  will  go  right  into  a  grocery  store,  aud  it  will 
pull  out  the  plug  of  all  the  adulterated  sirups,  and  it  will 
dump  into  the  ash  barrel  in  front  of  the  store  the  cassia 
bark  that  is  sold  for  cinnamon,  and  the  brick  dust  that 
is  sold  for  cayenne  pepper,  and  it  will  shake  out  the 
Prussian  blues  from  the  tea  leaves,  and  it  will  sift  from 
the  flour  plaster  of  Paris,  and  bone  dust,  and  soapstone, 
and  it  will  by  chemical  analysis  separate  the  one  quart  of 
Ridgewood  water  from  the  few  honest  drops  of  cow's 
milk,  and  it  will  throw  out  the  live  animalcules  from  the 
brown  sugar. 

STARTLING  FACTS  ABOUT  ADULTERATIONS  IN  FOOD  AND 
DRUGS. 

There  has  been  so  much  adulteration  of  articles  of 
food  that  it  is  an  amazement  to  me  that  there  is  a  healthy 
man  or  woman  in  America.  Heaven  only  knows  what 
they  put  into  the  spices,  and  into  the  sugars,  and  into 
the  butter,  and  into  the  apothecary  drugs.  But  chemi- 
cal analysis,  and  the  microscope  have  made  wonderful 
revelations.  The  board  of  health  in  Massachusettes 
analyzed  a  great  amount  of  what  was  called  pure  coffee, 


TOO    MUCH    THEORY.  1 63 

and  they  found  in  it  not  one  particle  of  coffee.  In  Eng- 
land there  is  a  law  that  forbids  the  putting  of  alum  in 
bread.  The  public  authorities  examined  fifty-one  pack- 
ages of  bread,  and  found  them  all  guilty.  The  honest 
physician,  writing  a  prescription,  does  not  know  but  that 
it  may  bring  death,  instead  of  health,  to  his  patient  be- 
cause there  may  be  one  of  the  drugs  weakened  by  a 
cheaper  article,  and  another  drug  may  be  in  full  force, 
and  so  the  prescription  may  have  just  the  opposite  effect 
intended.  Oil  of  wormwood,  warranted  pure,  from 
Boston,  was  found  to  have  41  per  cent  of  resin  and  al- 
cohol and  chloroform.  Scammony  is  one  of  the  most 
valuable  medical  drugs.  It  is  very  rare,  very  precious. 
It  is  the  sap  or  the  gum  of  a  tree,  or  a  bush,  in  Syria.  The 
root  of  the  tree  is  exposed,  an  incision  is  made  into  the 
root,  aud  then  shells  are  placed  at  this  incision  to  catch 
the  sap  or  the  gum  as  it  exudes. 

It  is  very  precious,  this  scammony.  But  the  peasant 
mixes  it  with  cheaper  material;  then  it  is  taken  to  Aleppo, 
and  the  merchant  there  mixes  it  with  a  cheaper  material; 
then  it  comes  on  to  the  wholesale  druggist  in  London  or 
New  York,  and  he  mixes  it  with  a  cheaper  material;  then 
it  comes  to  the  retail  druggist,  and  he  mixes  it  with  a 
cheaper  material,  and  by  the  time  the  poor  sick  man 
gets  it  into  his  bottle,  it  is  ashes,  and  chalk,  and  sand, 
and  some  of  what  has  been  called  pure  scammony,  after 
analysis,  has  been  found  to  be  no  scammony  at  all. 

PRACTICAL  RELIGION  WILL    SETTLE   "CORNERS." 

Now,  practical  religion  will  yet  rectify  all  this.  It  will 
go  to  those  hypocritical  professors  of  religion  who  got  a 
"corner"  in   corn  and  wheat  in  Chicago,    and  New  York, 


1 64  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

sending  prices  up,  and  up,  until  they  were  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  poor,  keeping  these  breadstuffs  in  their  own 
hands,  or  controlling  them  until,  the  prices  going  up,  and 
up  and  up,  they  were  after  a  while  ready  to  sell,  and  they 
sold  out,  making  themselves  millionaires  in  one  or  two 
years — trying  to  fix  the  matter  up  with  the  Lord  by 
building  a  church,  or  a  university,  or  a  hospital — delud- 
ing themselves  with  the  idea,  that  the  Lord  would  be  so 
pleased  with  the  gift,  He  would  forget  the  swindle. 

Now,  as  such  a  man  may  have  no  liturgy  in  which  to 
say  his  prayers,  I  will  compose  for  him  one,  which  he 
practically  is  making. 

THE  SWINDLER'S    PRAYER. 

"O  Lord,  we,  by  getting  a  'corner'  in  breadstuffs, 
swindled  the  people  of  the  United  States  out  of  ten  mil- 
lion dollars,  and  made  suffering  all  up  and  down  the  land, 
and  we  would  like  to  compromise  this  matter  with  Thee. 
Thou  knowest  it  was  a  scaly  job,  but  then  it  was  smart. 
Now,  here  we  compromise  it.  Take  one  per  cent  of  the 
profits,  and  with  that  one  per  cent  you  can  build  an 
asylum  for  these  poor  miserable  ragamuffins  of  the  street, 
and  I  will  take  a  yacht  and  g  "**  Europe,  for  ever  and 
ever,  amen!" 

Ah,  my  friends,  if  a  man  hath  gotten  his  estate  wrong- 
fully, and  he  build  a  line  of  hospitals  and  universities 
from  here  to  Alaska,  he  cannot  atone  for  it.  After  a 
while  the  man  who  has  been  getting  a  "corner"  in  wheat 
dies,  and  then  Satan  gets  a  "corner"  on  him.  He  goes 
into  a  great,  long  Black  Friday.  There  is  a  "break"  in 
the  market.  According  to  Wall  street  parlance,  he 
wiped  others  out,  and  now  he  is  himself  wiped  out.      No 


TOO    MUCH    THEORY.  1 65 

collaterals  on  which  to  make  a  spiritual  loan.        Eternal 
defalcation! 

PRACTICAL  RELIGION  WILL  ALSO  RECTIFY  TOIL. 

But  this  practical  religion  will  not  only  rectify  all  mer- 
chandise, it  will  also  rectify  all  mechanism  and  all  toil. 
A  time  will  come  when  a  man  will  work  as  faithfully  by 
the  job  as  he  does  by  the  day.  You  say  when  a  thing  is 
slightingly  done,  "Oh,  that  was  done  by  the  job!"  You 
can  tell  by  the  swiftness  or  slowness  with  which  a  hack- 
man  drives  whether  he  is  hired  by  the  hour  or  by  the  ex- 
cursion. If  he  is  hired  by  the  excursion  he  whips  up  the 
horses,  so  as  to  get  around  and  get  another  customer. 
All  styles  of  work  have  to  be  inspected.  Ships  inspect- 
ed, horses  inspected,  machinery  inspected.  Boss  to 
watch  the  journeymen.  Capitalist  coming  down  un- 
expectdly  to  watch  the  boss.  Conductor  of  a  city  car 
sounding  the  punch  bell  to  prove  his  honesty  as  a  pas- 
senger hands  him  a  clipped  nickle.  All  things  must  be 
watched  and  inspected.  Imperfections  in  the  wood 
covered  with  putty.  Garments  waranted  to  last  until 
you  put  them  on  the  third  time.  Shoddy  in  all  kinds  of 
clothing.  Chromos.  Pinchbeck.  Diamonds  for  a  dol- 
lar and  a  half.  Bookbinding  that  holds  on  until  you 
read  the  third  chapter.  Spavined  horses  by  skillful  dose 
of  jockeys  for  several  days  made  to  look  spry.  Wagon 
tires  poorly  put  on.  Horses  poorly  shod.  Plastering 
that  cracks  without  any  provocation  and  falls  off.  Plumb- 
ing that  needs  to  be  plumbed.  Imperfect  car  wheel  that 
halts  the  whole  train  with  a  hot  box.  So  little  practical 
religion  in  the  mechanism  of  the  world.  I  tell  you,  my 
friends,  the  law  of  man    will  never   rectify  these  things. 


1 66  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

It  will  be  the  all  pervading  influence  of  the  practical  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  Christ  that  will  make  the  change  for  the 
better. 

PRACTICAL    RELIGION    W7ILL    RECTIFY    THE    FARMERS  WORK. 

Yes,  this  practical  religion  will  also  go  into  agricul- 
ture, which  is  proverbially  honest,  but  needs  to  be  recti- 
fied, and  it  will  keep  the  farmer  from  sending  to  the 
New  York  market,  veal  that  is  too  young  too  kill,  and 
when  the  farmer  farms  on  shares,  it  will  keep  the  man 
who  does  the  work  from  making  his  half,  three-fourths, 
and  it  will  keep  the  farmer  from  building  his  post  and 
rail  fence  on  his  neighbor's  premises,  and  it  will  make 
him  shelter  his  cattle  in  the  winter  storm,  and  it  will  keep 
the  old  elder  from  working  on  Sunday  afternoon  in  the 
new  ground  where  nobody  sees  him.  And  this  practical 
religion  will  hover  over  the  house,  and  over  the  barn, 
and  over  the  field,  and  over  the  orchard. 

AND  ALSO    HELP  THE   LAWYER     AND    PHYSICIAN. 

Yes,  and  this  practical  religion  of  which  I  speak  will 
come  into  the  learned  professions.  The  lawyer  will  feel 
his  responsibility  in  defending  innocence,  and  arraigning 
evil,  and  expounding  the  law,  and  it  will  keep  him  from 
charging  for  briefs  he  never  wrote,  and  for  pleas  he  never 
made,  and  for  percentages  he  never  earned,  and  from 
robbing  widow  and  orphan  because  they  are  defenseless. 
Yes,  this  practical  religion  will  come  into  the  physicians 
life,  and  he  will  feel  his  responsibility  as  the  conservator 
of  the  public  health,  a  profession  honored  by  the  fact 
that  Christ  himself  was  a  physician.  And  it  will  make 
him  honest,  and  when  he  does  not  understand  a  case  he 
will  say  so,  not  trying  to  cover  up  lack  of  diagnosis  with 


TOO    MUCH    THEORY.  1 67 

ponderous  technicalities,  or  send  the  patient  to  a  reck- 
less drug  store  because  the  apothecary  happens  to  pay  a 
percentage  on  the  prescriptions  sent. 

AND  HELP  THE  SCHOOL  TEACHER. 

And  this  practical  religion  will  come  to  the  school 
teacher,  making  her  feel  her  responsibility  in  preparing 
our  youth  for  usefulness,  and  for  happiness,  and  for  honor, 
and  will  keep  her  from  giving  a  sly  box  to  a  dull  head, 
chastising  him  for  what  he  cannot  help,  and  sending 
discouragement  all   through  the  after  years  of  a  lifetime. 

This  practical  religion  will  also  come  to  the  newspaper 
men,  and  it  will  help  them  in  the  gathering  of  the  news, 
and  it  will  help  them  in  setting  forth  the  best  interests 
of  society,  and  it  will  keep  them  from  putting  the  sins 
of  the  world  in  larger  type  than  its  virtues,  and  its  mis- 
takes than  its  achievements. 

AND  SOCIETY. 

Yes,  this  religion,  this  practical  religion,  will  come  and 
put  its -hand  on  what  is  called  good  society,  elevated  so- 
ciety, successful  society,  so  that  people  will  have  their 
expenditures  within  their  income,  and  they  will  exchange 
the  hypocritical  "not  at  home"  for  the  honest  explana- 
tion "too  tired"  or  "too  busy  to  see  you,"  and  will  keep 
innocent  reception  from  becoming  intoxicating  convi- 
viality. 

Yes  there  is  a  great  opportunity  for  missionary  work  in 
what  are  called  the  successful  classes  of  society.  It  is 
no  rare  thing  now  to  see  a  fashionable  woman  intoxicat- 
ed in  the  street,  or  the  rail  car,  or  the  restaurant.  The 
number  of  fine  ladies  who  drink  too  much  is  increasing. 
Perhaps  you  may  find  her  at  the  reception  in  most  exalt- 


1 68  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

ed  company,  but  she  has  made  too  many  visits  to  the 
wine  room,  and  now  her  eye  is  glassy,  and  after  a  while, 
her  cheek  is  unnaturally  flushed,  and  then  she  falls  into 
fits  of  excruciating  laughter  about  nothing,  and  then 
she  offers  sickening  flatteries,  telling  some  homely  man 
how  well  he  looks,  and  then  she  is  helped  into  the  car- 
riage, and  by  the  time  the  carriage  gets  to  her  home,  it 
takes  the  husband  and  the  coachman  to  get  her  up  the 
stairs.  The  report  is,  she  was  taken  suddenly  ill  at  a 
german.  Ah!  no.  She  took  too  much  champagne  and 
mixed  liquors,  and  got  drunk.      That  was  all. 

SOME  MEMBERS  OF  CHURCHES  HAVE  TOO  MANY    WIVES,    AND 
SOME  WIVES  TOO    MANY  HUSBANDS. 

Yes,  this  practical  religion  will  have  to  come  in  and  fix 
up  the  marriage  relation  in  America.  There  are  mem- 
bers of  churches  who  have  too  many  wives  and  too  many 
husbands.  Society  needs  to  be  expurgated  and  washed 
and  fumigated  and  Christianized.  We  have  missionary 
societies  to  reform  Elm  street,  in  New  York,  Bedford 
street,  Philadelphia,  and  Shoreditch,  London,  and 
the  Brooklyn    docks;    but    there    is  need    of    an   or- 

ganization to  reform  much  that  is  going  on  in  Beacon 
street  and  Madison  square,  and  Rittenhouse  square  and 
West  End  and  Brooklyn  Heights  and  Brooklyn  Hill. 

We  want  this  practical  religion  not  only  to  take  hold  of 
what  are  called  the  lower  classes,  but  to  take  hold  of 
what  are  called  the  higher  classes.  The  trouble  is  that 
people  have  an  idea  that  they  can  do  all  their  religion 
on  Sunday  with  hymn  book,  and  prayer  book,  and  liturgy, 
and  some  of  them  sit  in  church  rolling  up  their  eyes  as 
though  they  were  ready   for  translation,  when  their  Sab- 


TOO    MUCH    THEORY.  1 69 

bath  is  bounded  on  all  sides  by  an  inconsistent  life,  and 
while  you  are  expecting  to  come  out  from  under  their 
arms,  the  wings  of  an  angel,  there  come  out  from  their 
foreheads  the  horns  of  a  beast. 

THERE  MUST  BE  A  NEW  DEPARTURE  IN   RELIGION. 

There  has  got  to  be  a  new  departure  in  religion.  I  do 
not  say  a  new  religion.  Oh,  no;  but  the  old  religion 
brought  to  new  appliances.  In  our  times  we  have  had 
the  daguerreotype,  and  the  ambrotype,  and  the  photo- 
graph, but  it  is  thes  ame  old  sun,  and  their  arts  are  only 
new  appliances  of  the  old  sunlight!  So  this  glorious 
gospel  is  just  what  we  want  to  photograph  the  image  of 
God  on  one  soul,  and  daguerreotype  it  on  another  soul. 
Not  a  new  gospel,  but  the  old  gospel  put  to  new  work. 
In  our  time  we  have  had  the  telegraphic  invention,  and 
the  electric  light  invention,  but  they  are  all  the  children 
of  old  electricity,  an  element  that  the  philosophers  have 
a  long  while  known  much  about.  So  this  electric  gospel 
needs  to  flash  its  light  on  the  eyes,  and  ears,  and  souls  of 
men,  and  become  a  telephonic  medium  to  make  the  deaf 
hear;  a  telephonic  medium  to  dart  invitation  and  warn- 
ing to  all  nations;  an  electric  light  to  illumine  the 
eastern  and  western  hemispheres.  Not  a  new  gospel 
but  the  old  gospel  doing  a  new  work. 

SPECIMENS  OF  MODEL  DOCTORS. 

Now  you  say,  "That  is  a  very  beautiful  theory,  but  is 
it  possible  to  take  one's  religion  into  all  the  avocations 
and  business  of  life?"  Ye's,  and  I  will  give  you  a  few 
specimens.  Medical  doctors  who  took  their  religion  into 
every  day  life:  Dr.  John  Abercrombie,  of  Aberdeen,  the 
greatest    Scottish    physician    of   his    day,    his    book   on 


I70  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

"Diseases  of  the  Brain  and  Spinal  Cord"  no  more  won- 
derful than  his  book  on  "The  Philosophy  of  the  Moral 
Feelings,"  and  often  kneeling  at  the  bedside  of  his 
patient  to  commend  them  to  God  in  prayer.  Dr.  John 
Brown,  of  Edinburgh,  immortal  as  an  author,  dying  under 
the  benediction  of  the  sick  of  Edinburgh,  myself  remem- 
bering him  as  he  sat  in  his  study,  in  Edinburgh  talking  to 
me  about  Christ  and  his  hope  of  heaven.  And  scores  of 
Christian  family  physicians  in  Brooklyn  just  as  good  as 
they  were. 

MODEL    LAWYERS. 

Lawyers  who  carried  their  religion  into  their  profes- 
sion: The  late  Lord  Cairns,  the  queen's  adviser  for 
many  years,  the  highest  legal  authority  in  Great  Britain 
— Lord  Cairns,  every  summer  in  his  vacation,  preaching 
as  an  evangelist  among  the  poor  of  his  country.  John 
McLean,  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  and  president  of  the  American  Sunday  School 
union,  feeling  more  satisfaction  in  the  latter  office  than 
in  the  former.  And  scores  of  Christian  lawyers  as  emi- 
nent in  the  Church  of  God  as  they  are  eminent  at  the 
bar. 

MODEL   MERCHANTS. 

Merchants  who  took  their  religion  into  everyday  life: 
Arthur  Tappan,  derided  in  his  day,  because  he  establish- 
ed that  system  by  which  we  come  to  find  out  the  com- 
mercial standing  of  business  men,  starting  that  entire 
system  derided  for  it  then,  himself,  as  I  knew  him  well, 
in  moral  character,  Ai.  Monday  mornings  inviting  to  a 
room  in  the  top  of  his  store-house  the  clerks  of  his  estab- 
lishment, asking  them  about  their  worldly    interests  and 


TOO    MUCH    THEORY.  I  7  I 

their  spiritual  interests,  then  giving  out  a  hymn,  leading 
in  prayer,  giving  them  a  few  words  of  good  advice,  ask- 
ing them  what  church  they  attended  on  the  Sabbath, 
what  the  text  was,  whether  they  had  any  especial  troubles 
of  their  own.  Arthur  Tappan;  I  never  heard  his  eulogy 
pronounced.  I  pronounce  it  now.  And  other  merchants 
just  as  good.  William  E.  Dodge  in  the  iron  business; 
Moses  H.  Grinnell  in  the  shipping  business;  Peter  Cooper 
in  the  glue  business.  Scores  of  men  just  as  good  as  they 
were. 

MODEL    FARMERS. 

Farmers  who  take  their  religion  into  their  occupation: 
Why,  this  minute  their  horses  and  wagons  stand  around 
all  the  meeting  houses  in  America.  They  began  this 
day  by  a  prayer  to  God,  and  when  they  get  home  at 
noon,  after  they  have  put  their  horses  up,  will  offer 
prayer  to  God  at  the  table,  seeking  a  blessing,  and 
this  summer  there  will  be  in  their  fields  not  one  dis- 
honest head  of  rye,  not  one  dishonest  ear  of  corn,  not 
one  dishonest  apple.  Worshiping  God  to-day  away  up 
among  the  Berkshire  hills,  or  away  down  amid  the  la- 
goons of  Florida,  or  away  out  amid  the  mines  of  Color- 
ado, or  along  the  banks  of  the  Passaic  and  the  Raritan, 
where  I  knew  them  better,  because  I  went  to  school  with 
them. 

MODEL  MECHANICS. 

Mechanics  who  took  their  religion  into  their  occupa- 
tion: James  Brindley,  the  famous  millright;  Nathaniel 
Bowditch,  the  famous  ship  chandler;  Elihu  Burritt,  the 
famous  blacksmith,  and  hundreds  and  thousands  of  strong 
arms  which  have    made  the  hammer,    and  the   saw,    and 


172  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES. 

the  adze,  and  the    drill,  and    the  ax    sound  in  the    grand 
march  of  our  national  industries 

Give  your  heart  to  God  and  then  fill  your  Hie  with 
good  works.  Consecrate  to  him  your  store,  your 
shop,  your  banking  house,  your  factory  and  your  home. 
They  say  no  one  will  hear  it.  God  will  hear  it.  That 
is  enough.  You  hardly  know  of  any  one  else  than  Wel- 
lington as  connected  with  the  victory  of  Waterloo;  but 
he  did  not  do  the  hard  fighting.  The  hard  fighting  was 
done  by  the  Somerset  cavalry,  and  the  Ryland  regiments, 
and  Kempt's  infantry,  and  the  Scots  Grays  and  the  Life 
Guards.      Who  cares  if  only  the  day  was  won! 

A  BEAUTIFUL  EXAMPLE  OF  A  YOUNG  CHRISTIAN  WIFE. 

In  the  latter  part  of  last  century  a  girl  in  England  be- 
came a  kitchen  maid  in  a  farm  house.  She  had  many 
styles  of  work,  and  much  hard  work.  Time  rolled  on, 
and  she  married  the  son  of  a  weaver  of  Halifax.  They 
were  industrious;  they  saved  money  enough  after  a  while 
to  build  them  a  home.  On  the  morning  of  the  day  when 
they  were  to  enter  that  home  the  young  wife  arose  at 
four  o'clock,  entered  the  front  door  yard,  knelt  down, 
consecrated  the  place  to  God,  and  there  made  this  solemn 
vow:  "O  Lord,  if  thou  wilt  bless  me  in  this  place,  the 
poor  shall  have  a  share  of  it."  Time  rolled  on  and  a 
fortune  rolled  in.  Children  grew  up  around  them,  and 
they  all  became  affluent;  one,  a  member  of  parliament,  in 
a  public  place  declared  that  his  success  came  from  that 
prayer  of  his  mother  in  the  door  yard.  All  of  them  were 
affluent.  Four  thousand  hands  in  their  factories.  They 
built  dwelling  houses  for  laborers  at  cheap  rents,  and  when 


TOO    MUCH    THEORY.  1 73 

they    were    invalid,    and    could    not  pay,    they  had    the 
houses  for  nothing. 

One  of  these  sons  came  to  this  country,  admired  our 
parks,  went  back,  bought  land  Lnd  opened  a  great  public 
park,  and  made  it  a  present  to  the  city  of  Halifax,  Eng- 
land. They  endowed  an  orphanage,  they  endowed  two 
almhouses.  All  England  has  heard  of  the  generosity 
and  good  works  of  the  Crossleys.  Moral — Consecrate  to 
God  your  small  means  and  humble  surroundings,  and  you 
will  have  larger  means  and  grander  surroundings.  "God- 
liness is  profitable  to  all  things,  having  promise  of  the 
life  that  now  is  and  of  that  which  is  to  come."  Have  faith 
in  God  by  all  means,  but  remember  that  faith  withort 
works  is  dead." 


THE  DEFRAUDER,   LIBERTINE,   AND  ASSASSIN. 

"He  shall  be    buried  with  the  burial  of  an  ass."     Jeremiah,  xxii.,    19. 

^ehoiakim  sat  for  ten  years  on  a  throne.  Plenty  of 
Igold — plenty  of  sycophants — plenty  of  chariots. 
\«^When  he  rode,  I  think  he  rode  with  four  horses; 
and  when  he  wore  diamonds,  I  think  he  wore  them  as 
big  as  a  walnut.  If  there  had  been  a  railroad  so  early 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  he  would  have  stolen  it. 
He  wallowed  in  sin  until  a  sudden  change  in  public  affairs, 
and  then  he  died  in  shame,  and  was  kicked  out  of  public 
contempt:  Buried  with  the  burial  of  an  ass." 
After  a  life  of  private  or  public  iniquity,  a  man's  death  is 
not  deplored.  The  obsequies  may  be  pretentious — there 
may  be  flags,  and  wreaths,  and  catafalques,  and  military 
processions;  but  the  world  feels  that  a  nuisance  has  been 
abated;  he  is  cast  forth  by  reason  of  the  scorn  and  con- 
tempt of  men;  and  figuratively,  if  not  literally,  he  is 
' 'buried  with  the  burial  of  an  ass." 

Urged  by  recent  events,  I  address  young  men  to-night 
upon  the  romance  of  crime,  and  I  want  to  show  them 
that,  though  crime  may  be  gilded  and  fascinating,  the 
end  is  ruin  here,  and  damnation  hereafter. 

THE    ROMANCE  OF  FRAUD. 

First,   There  is  the  romance  of  fraud.        The  heroes  of* 
this  country  are  fast  getting  to  be  those    who  have   most 
skill    in   swallowing    "trust-funds;"    banks,    stocks,    and 
moneyed  institutions.        Our  young  men    are  dazzled  by 
the  quick   success,    and  say,    "That    is  the  way  to^lo  it. 

[174] 


ABUSED. 


THE    DEFRAUDER,    LIBERTINE,  AND  ASSASSIN.  1 75 

He  was  a  country  peddler  a  few  years  ago,  now  see  what 
a  gorgeous  turn-out!"  Theft  on  Wall  Street  is  measured 
by  a  different  standard  from  that  which  takes  its  spoils 
through  Rat  Alley.  He  who  steals  a  vest  from  a  second- 
hand clothing-store  gets  a  ride  in  the  city  van  without 
the  opportunity  of  looking  out  of  the  window,  but  he  who 
swallows  a  moneyed  institution  astonishes  Central  Park 
with  his  equipage. 

By  a  kind  of  irresistible  instruction,  our  young  men 
learn  that  the  poorest  way  to  get  money  is  to  earn  it. 
''What!"  says  the  young  man  of  flaunting  cravat  to  the 
young  man  of  humble  apparel,  "you  only  get  eight  hun- 
dred dollars  a  year!  Why,  that  would  hardly  keep  me 
in  pin  money!  I  spend  five  thousand  dollars  a  year.' 
"Where  do  you  get  it?"  "Oh,  stocks,  enterprises,  and 
all  that  kind  of  thing,  you  know."  The  plain  young 
man  has  hard  work  to  pay  his  board-bill;  has  to  wear  a 
coat  after  it  is  out  of  fashion;  denies  himself  all  luxuries. 
After  a  while  he  gets  tired,  and  goes  to  flaunting  cravat, 
and  says,  "Tell  us  how  you  get  into  these  enterprises." 
The  plain  young  man  soon  learns.  Although  he  has 
quitted  the  store  or  shop  where  he  used  to  work,  and 
seems  to  be  mostly  idle,  yet  he  soon  dresses  better,  trades 
off  his  old  silver  watch  for  a  gold  one  with  a  splendid 
chain,  sets  his  hat  a  little  farther  over  on  one  side  of  his 
head,  and  smokes  better  cigars,  and  more  of  them.  He 
has  his  hand  in.  And  if  for  three  or  four  years  he  can 
escape  the  penitentiary,  he  is  not  far  off  from  being  in- 
troduced to  the  Tweed  and  the  Carnochans,  or  has  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  docks,  or  harbors,  or  pavements,  or 
the  inspection  of  the  public  buildings.       And  after  he  has 


176  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

got  as  far  as  that,  he  is  safe — for  perdition.  A  man  has 
to  travel  some  distance  up  before  he  gets  into  the  ro- 
mance of  crime.  The  man  who  is  caught  and  incarcer- 
ated is  in  the  prosaic  period.  If  the  sheriffs  and  con- 
stable, have  given  him  a  chance  to  learn  the  business, 
he  would  have  stolen  as  well  as  anybody.  If  he  could 
not  have  stolen  a  railroad,  he  could,  at  least,  have  mas- 
tered a  load  of  pig-iron. 

I  thank  God  when  fortunes  thus  gathered  go  to  smash. 
They  are  plague-struck,  and  blast  a  nation.  I  like  to 
have  them  go  to  pieces  in  such  a  wreck  that  they  can 
never  again  be  gathered  up.  I  like  to  have  them  made 
loathsome  and  an  insufferable  stench,  so  that  honest 
young  men  may  take    warning. 

If  God  should  put  suddenly  into  money,  or  its  repre- 
sentative, the  power  to  return  to  its  rightful  owner,  there 
is  not  a  bank  or  safety  deposit  that  would  not  have  its 
sides  blown  out;  and  parchments  would  rip,  and  gold 
would  shoot,  and  mortgages  would  rend,  and  beggars 
would  get  horses,  and  stock-gamblers  would  go  to  the 
aim-house.  How  much  dishonesty  in  the  making  of  in- 
voices, and  in  oaths  at  the  Custom  House,  and  in  plaster- 
ing of  labels,  and  in  the  filching  of  customers  of  rival 
houses,  and  in  false  samples,  and  in  the  making  and 
breaking  of  contracts!  Hundreds  of  young  men  are  be- 
ing indoctrinated  in  the  idea  that  money  must  be  had 
quickly,  and  that  the  larger  the  scale  on  which  they  take 
it,  the  more    admirable  the  smartness    and  legerdemain. 

A  young  man  of  New  York  stood  behind  the  counter 
selling  silks  to  a  lady.  After  the  sale  had  been  made,  he 
said  to  the  customer: 


THE  DEFRAUDER,    LIBERTINE,    AND  ASSASSIN.  T  77 

"I  see  a  flaw  in  that  silk." 

The  lady  recognized  it  and  did  not  conclude  the  pur- 
chase. 

The  head  man  of  the  firm  saw  the  transaction  and 
wrote  to  the  father  of  the  young  man  in  the  country, 
saying,  "Come  down  and  take  your  boy  home;  he  will 
never  make  a  merchant." 

The  father  came  down  in  excitement  to  see  what  his 
boy  had  been  doing. 

The  employer  said,  "Your  son  actually  stood  at  the 
counter  the  other  dry  and  pointed  out  a  flaw  in  one  of 
our  silks,  so  that  we  lost  the  sale  of  the  goods." 

The  father  said,  "If  that  is  all  my  boy  has  done,  I 
am  proud  of  him,  and  I  would  not  have  him  stay  five 
minutes  more  under  your  bad  influence.  John,  take  your 
hat  and  come  home;"  and  away  they  started. 

The  pressure  on  our  young  men  in  town  to-day  is  aw- 
ful. Hundreds  of  them  are  going  down  under  it  for  time 
and  for  eternity.  Others  are  nobly  enduring  the  pressure. 
May  God  help  them!  The  public  mind  is  utterly  poison- 
ed and  diseased  on  the  subject  of  money-making,  and  no 
wonder  that  God  spoke  in  thunder  last  week,  not  only 
to  New  York,  but  to  all  the  cities  of  the  world  saying, 
"Look  out  how  you  get  you  money.  By  the  hand  of 
death  or  judgement  it  shall  be  wrenched  from  your  grasp. 
If  you  get  riches  by  fraud,  you  will  leave  them  in  the 
midst  of  your  days,  and  at  the  end  you  shall  be  a  fool." 

What  shall  be  the  eternal  destiny  of  such  a  man?  I 
leave  you  to  guess.  I  make  you  the  jury  to  say  what 
shall  be  the  doom  of  that  Wall  Street  defrauder  who, 
after  the  most  gigantic   dishonesties  that  were  ever  prac- 


I78  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

ticed  on  this  planet,  died  without  one  seeming  word  of 
repentance  or  of  prayer — in  his  will  giving  away  the 
spoils  of  the  most  unprecedented  thefts  without  saying 
in  that  will,  "These  are  the  moneys  I  got  by  crime,  and 
are  the  plea  for  my  eternal  condemnation."  One  min- 
ute after  a  man  goes  up  to  judgement,  how  many  steam- 
boats does  he  own?  How  many  shares  of  stock  in  Erie 
Railway?  How  many  opera-houses?  None!  The  poor 
boy  with  a  penny  in  his  pocket,  who  stands  on  the-cor- 
ner  as  the  funeral  pageant  of  the  dead  cheat  passes  along, 
has  more  money  fn  his  pocket  than  the  man  who,  a 
few  days  before,  boasted  that  all  the  country  was  afraid 
of  him. 

LIBERTINISM. 

Next,  I  speak  of  the  romance  of  libertinism.  Society 
has  severest  retribution  for  the  impurity  that  lurks  about 
the  cellars  and  alleys  of  the  city.  It  cries  out  against  it. 
It  hurls  the  indignation  of  the  law  at  it.  But  society 
becomes  more  lenient  as  impurity  rises  toward  affluence 
and  high  social  position,  until,  finally,  it  is  silent,  or  dis- 
posed to  palliate.  Where  is  the  judge,  or  the  sheriff,  or 
tne  police,  who  dare  arraign  for  indecency  the  wealthy 
villian?  May  he  not  walk  the  streets,  and  ride  the  parks, 
and  sail  the  steamers,  flaunting  his  vices  in  the  eyes  of 
the  pure?  Does  not  the  vile  hag  of  uncleanness  look  out 
from  tapestried  window,  and  walk  richest  carpet,  and 
rustle  finest  silk,  and  roll  in  most  sumptuous  carriage? 
But  where  is  the  law  to  take  these  brazen  wretches  of 
"high  life"  und  put  their  faces  in  the  iron  frame  of  the 
State  Prison  window? 

It  seems  as  if    modern  society  were  hastening  back  to- 


THE  DEFRAUDER,    LIBERTINE,   AND  ASSASSIN.  I  79 

ward  the  days  of  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii,  which 
sculpured  their  vileness  on  pillar  and  temple  wall,  until 
nothing  but  the  lava  of  a  burning  mountain  could  hide 
the  immensity  of  the  crime. 

At  what  time  the  Lord  God  shall  begin  to  purge  our 
cities  I  know  not,  nor  whether  it  shall  be  by  flood,  or  by 
fire,  or  by  hurricane;  but  I  do  not  believe  the  holy  God 
will  stand  it  much  longer.  I  think  that  the  thunderbolts 
of  his  indignation  are  hissing  hot,  and  that  when  he  rises 
up  to  scourge  these  crimes,  against  which  he  hath  utter- 
ed more  bitter  curses  than  against  any  other,  the  fate  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  will  be  found  to  have  been  more 
tolerable  than  that  of  our  modern  cities,  which  knew 
better,  but  showed  disposition  to  do  worse. 

Would  God  that  the  romance  which  flings  its  fascina- 
tions over  the  bestialities  of  high  life  might  be  gone! 
Let  it  be  known  that  uncleanness  on  Madison  Square  is 
as  damnable  in  the  sight  of  God  as  the  uncleannesson 
the  five-points.  Whether  it  has  canopied  couch  of  eider- 
down, or  sleep  amid  the  putridity  of  the  low  tenement- 
house,  four  families  in  a  room,  God's  consuming  venge- 
ance is  after  it.  "All  adulterers  and  whoremongers 
shall  have  their  place  in  the  lake  that  burneth  with  fire 
and  brimstone."  It  is  hell  on  earth.  It  is  hell  in  eter- 
nity. 

Ever  and  anon  we  stand  aghast  at  some  exposure  of 
splendid  libertinism,  as  God  hurls  it  upon  the  public  gaze. 
Such  a  life  ends  either  in  violence  or  murder,  and  we 
hear  in  the  hotel  hall  or  boarding-house  parlor  the  crack 
of  a  pistol — a  libertine  shot  by  a  libertine — or  the  crime 
puts  its  victim  into  the  lazar-house,  and  lets  him  hoiribly 


l8o  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

die  there.  "He  goeth  after  her  straightway,  as  an  ox 
goeth  to  the  slaughter,  or  as  a  fool  to  the  correction  of 
the  stocks,  until  the  dart  strikes  through  his  liver."  "As 
a  bird  hasteneth  to  a  snare,  and  knoweth  not  that  it  is 
for  his  life."  "She  hath  cast  down  many  wounded;  yea, 
many  strong  men  have  been  slain  by  her." 

THE  ROMANCE  OF  ASSASSINATION. 

Finally,  I  speak  of  the  romance  of  assassination.  God 
gives  life,  and  he  only  has  a  right  to  take  it  away;  and 
that  man  who  assumes  this  divine  prerogative  has  touch- 
ed the  last  depth  of  crime.  Society  is  alert  for  certain 
forms  of  murder.  If  a  citizen,  on  his  way  home  at  night, 
is  waylaid  and  slain  of  a  robber,  we  are  all  anxious  for 
his  arraingment  and  execution.  For  garroting,  or  the 
beating  out  of  life  with  a  club,  or  axe,  or  slung-shot,  the 
law  has  a  quick  spring  and  a  heavy  stroke.  But  let  a 
man  come  to  wealth  or  social  pretension,  and  then  at- 
tempt to  avenge  his  wrongs  by  aiming  a  pistol  at  the 
head  or  heart  of  another,  and  immediately  there  are  sym- 
pathies aroused;  and  the  lawyers  plead,  and  the  ladies 
weep,  and  the  juries  are  bribed,  and  the  judge  halts;  a 
new  trial  is  granted,  and  the  case  is  postponed  for  wit- 
nesses that  never  come:  and  after  a  number  of  months  in 
prison,  the  door  is  opened  and  the  murderer  is  out. 
call  this  the  romance  of  assassination. 

If  capital  punishment  be  right,  then  let  the  life  of  the 
polished  murderer  go  with  the  life  of  the  ignorant  and 
vulgar  assassin.  Let  there  be  no  partiality  of  hemp,  no 
aristocracy  of  the  gallows.  We  are,  in  our  cities,  on  the 
march  back  toward  that  state  of  barbarism  where  every 
man   is  judge,  jury,  and  executive  officer — a  state  of  so- 


THE  DEFRAUDER,    LIBERTINE,   AND  ASSASSIN  i  «S  J 

ciety  in  which  that  man  has  the  supremacy  who  has  the 
sharpest  knife,  and  strongest  arm,  and  stealthiest  re- 
venge, and  quickest  spring. 

He  who  wilfully  and  in  hate  takes  the  life  of  another  is 
a  murderer,  I  care  not  what  the  provocation  or  what  the 
circumstances.  A  jury  may  clear  him  amid  the  plaudits 
of  the  court-room;  or  the  President  may  send  him  as  an 
embassador  to  spain;  or  modern  literature  may  gild  the 
crime  until  it  looks  like  courage  and  heroism;  neverthe- 
less, in  God's  eye,  murder  is  murder,  and  the  judgement 
day  will  so  pronounce  it. 

My  advice  to  all  young  men  is  to  sell  their  pistols,  and 
take  the  knife  out  of  the  top  of  their  cane,  and  depend 
on  God  and  their  own  stout  arm  for  defense.  A  man 
who  does  not  feel  himself  safe  without  deadly  weapons  is 
in  the  wrong  kind  of  association  and  companionship, 
and  you  had  better  get  out  of  it;  for  the  probability  is 
that  either  they  will  kill  you  or  you  will  kill  them — which 
latter  thing,  for  your  soul  in  eternity,  will  be  the  greatest 
disaster  of  the  two;  for  "no  murderer  hath  eternal  life;'' 
and  in  the  future  life  there  is  no  romance  of  assassina- 
tion. 

To  the  youug  men  of  this  country  there  comes  a  stout 
warning  from  recent  events.  Within  the  past  few  davs, 
as  never  before  within  our  remembrance,  the  old  Bible 
words  ring  out  on  the  ear:  "Her  house  is  the  way  to 
hell,  going  down  to  the  chambers  of  death."  'The 
bloody  and  deceitful  man  shall  not  live  out  half  his 
days. " 

What  an  unclean  net  it  was  over  there  in  New  York! 
Both  of  the  chief  actors   were  defrauders  and  adulterers. 


*o2  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

Many  of  the  sympathizers  were  partners  with  them  in 
crime.  All  the  circumstances  were  appalling,  horrid, 
and  overwhelming.  The  comedy  and  the  farce  at  which 
the  nation  laughed,  became  the  tragedy  that  made  the 
nation  shudder. 

Oh  young  man,  take  not  the  manners,  and  customs, 
and  habits  of  what  is  wrongly  calied  ''high  life"  for  your 
example.  Do  not  think  sin  is  less  to  be  hated  because 
it  is  epauleted  and  adorned.  The  brown-stone  front  can 
no  more  keep  back  the  judgements  of  God  than  can  the 
cellar  door.  Behold  how  God  blows  up  the  magnificent 
wickedness  of  high  places! 

There  may  be  some  here  who  are  venturing  out  into 
sin.  The  marks  of  pollution  are  already  upon  them.  At 
Long  Branch  or  Cape  May,  some  summer  day,  you  may 
have  stood  on  the  beach,  and  seen  a  man  go  down  into 
the  breakers  to  tmthe.  He  went  out  farther  and  farther, 
until  you  became  anxious  about  him.  You  wondered  if 
he  could  swim.  You  shouted  to  him,  as  he  advanced  in 
the  water,  "Come  back!  come  back!  You  will  be  lost! 
you  will  be  lost!"  He  turned  around,  waved  his  hand, 
and  shouted  "No  danger,"  and  still  went  on,  until,  after 
a  while,  a  wave,  with  great  undertow,  swept  him  out — 
his  corpse  the  next  day  washed  up  on  the  beach.  So  I 
see  young  men  going  into  the  waves  of  sin — deeper  and 
deeper,  farther  from  God,  and  farther;  and  I  stand  on 
the  beach  to-night,  and  cry  the  warning:  "Come  back! 
corns  back!  You  will  be  lost!  you  will  be  lost!"  Some, 
not  heeding  the  warning,  will  jeer  at  the  alarm  and  go 
ahead,  till,  after  a  while,  the  wave  of  God's  indignation 
will  sweep  them  off,  and  sweep  them  down  forever. 


THE  DEFRAUDER,    LIBERTINE,   AND  ASSASSIN.  I  83 

There  may  be  some  here  who  have  ventured  into  sin- 
ful courses  who  would  like  to  return.  You  came  in  here 
to-night  discouraged,  and  feel  that  there  is  but  little  hope. 
I  will  tell  you  of  a  daughter  who  went  from  home  into 
the  paths  of  sin.  After  many  months  of  wandering  she 
resolved  one  night  to  go  home  to  her  mother's  house.  It 
was  after  midnight  when  she  arrived  at  the  house.  She 
supposed  that  the  door  would  be  locked;  but,  putting 
her  hand  on  the  latch,  the  door  opened.  She  asked  her 
mother  why  it  was  that  the  door,  after  midnight,  was 
unlocked.  Said  the  mother,  "That  door  has  never  been 
locked  since  you  went  away.  1  have  given  orders  that, 
by  day  and  night,  it  should  be  unfastened,  for  I  was  sure 
that  you  would  come  back,  and  when  you  came  I  did 
not  want  you  to  be  hindered  a  miuute."  So  I  have  to 
tell  you  that  the  door  of  God's  mercy  is  ever  unlocked. 
By  day  and  by  night  it  stands  open  for  your  coming. 
Though  your  sins  were  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  as  snow; 
though  they  were  red  as  crimsou,  they  shall  be  as  wool. 
Though  you  may  be  polluted  with  all  crimes,  and 
smitten  of  all  leprosies,  and  fired  by  the  most  depraved 
passions,  and  have  not  heard  the  Gospel  invitation  for 
twenty  years,  you  may  have  set  upon  your  brow,  hot  with 
infamous  practices  and  besweated  with  exhaustive  indul- 
gences, the  flashing  coronet  of  a  Savior's  forgiveness. 

Who  is  it  that  cometh  younder?  Methinks  I  know  his 
step.  Methinks  before  this  I  have  seen  the  rage.  Look, 
all  ye  people  of  God!  Out  of  all  the  windows  of  heaven 
let  the  angels  watch!  A  prodigal  returning!  Let  us  go 
out  and  meet  him.        Welcome  back    again  to    thy  long- 


1 84 


EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 


forsaken  home  and  to  thy  long-forsaken  God. 
is  alive  again!     The  lost  is  found! 

"Pleased  with  the  news,  the  saints  below 
In  songs  their  tongue  employ; 

Beyond  the  sky  the  tidings  go, 
And  heaven  is  filled  with  joy. 

"Nor  angels  can  their  joy  contain, 

But  kindle  with  new  fire; 
The  sinner  lost  is  found!  they  sing, 
And  strike  the  sounding  lyre." 


The  dead 


COMMON  CLOAKS  FOR  SIN. 

"But  now  they  have  no  cloak  for  their  sin  "     John  xv,  22. 

in  is  always  disguised.  Decked  and  glossed  and 
■ perfumed  and  masked  it  gains  admittance  in  places 

from  which  it  Would  otherwise  be  repelled.  As 
silently  as  when  it  glided  into  Eden,  and  as  plausible  as 
when  it  talked  to  Christ  at  the  top  of  the  temple,  it  now 
addresses  men.  Could  people  look  upon  sin  as  it  al- 
ways is — an  exhalation  from  the  pit,  the  putrefaction  of 
infinite  capacities,  the  ghastly,  loathsome,  God  smitten 
monster  that  uprooted  Eden,  and  killed  Christ,  and 
would  push  the  entire  race  into  darkness  and  pain — the 
infernal  charm  would  be  broken.  Before  our  first  parents 
transgressed,  sin  appeared  to  them  the  sweetness  of  fruit, 
and  the  becoming,  as  gods,  To  Absalom  it  was  the 
pleasure  of  sitting  upon  a  throne.  To  men  now,  sin  is 
laughter  and  permission  to  luxurious  gratification.  Jesus 
Christ  in  my  text  suggests  a  fact  which  everybody  ought 
to  know,  and  that  sin,  to  hide  its  deformity  and  shame, 
is  accustomed  to  wearing  a  cloak;  and  the  Savior  also 
sets  forth  fhe  truth  that  God  can  see  straight  through  all 
such  wrappings  and  thicknesses.  I  want  now  to  speak 
of  several  kinds  of  cloaks  with  which  men  expect  to  cover 
up  their  iniquities,  for  the  fashion  in  regard  to  these  gar- 
ments is  constantly  changing,  and  every  day  beholds 
some  new  style  of  wearing   them,  and  if  you  will  tarry  a 

[i85] 


1 86  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

little  while  I  will  show  you  five    or  six  of  the  patterns  of 
cloaks. 

OFFICE  AND    POSITION  A  COMMON    CLOAK. 

First,  I  remark  that  there  are  those  who,  being  hon- 
ored with  official  power,  expect  to  make  that  a  successful 
cloak  for  their  sin.  There  is  a  sacredness  in  office.  God 
himself  is  king,  and  all  who  hold  authority  in  the  world 
serve  under  Him.  The  community  has  committed  a 
monstrous  wrong  who  has  elevated  to  this  dignity  persons 
unqualified  either  by  their  ignorance  or  their  immorality. 
Nations  who  elevate  to  posts  of  authority  those  not  qual- 
ified to  fill  them  will  feel  the  reaction.  Solomon  express- 
ed this  thought  when  he  said:  "Woe  unto  thee,  O  land, 
vhen  thy  king  is  a  child  and  thy  princes  drink  in  the 
morning."  While  positions  of  trust  may  be  disgraced 
by  the  character  of  those  who  fill  them,  I  believe  God 
would  have  us  respectful  to  the  offices,  though  we  may 
have  no  admiration  for  their  occupants.  Yet  this  dignity 
which  office  confers  can  be  no  apology  for  transgression. 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  Ahab,  and  Herod  in  the  day  of 
judgment,  must  stand  on  the  level  with  the  herdsmen 
that  kept  their  flocks,  and  the  fishermen  of  Galilee.  Pope, 
and  king,  and  President,  and  governor,  must  give  an  ac- 
count to  God,  and  be  judged  by  the  same  law  as  that 
which  judges  the  beggar  and  the  slave.  Sin  is  all  the 
more  obnoxious  when  it  is  imperial  and  lordly.  You 
cannot  make  pride  or  injustice  or  cruelty  sacred  by  giving 
it  a  throne.  Belshazzar's  decanters  could  not  keep  the 
mysterious  finger  from  writing  on  the  wall.  Ahab's  sin 
literally  hurled  him  from  the  throne  to  the  dogs.  The 
imperial    vestments  of    wicked  Jehoram    could  not    keep 


CLOAKS  FOR  SIN.  I  87 

Jehu's  arrow  from  striking  through  his  heart.  Jezebel's 
queenly  pretension  could  not  save  her  from  being  thrown 
over  the  wall.  No  barricade  of  thrones  can  arrest  God's 
justice  in  its  unerring  march.  No  splendor  or  thickness 
of  official  robes  can  be  a  sufficient  cloak  of  sin.  Henry 
VIII,  Louis  XV,  Catharine  of  Russia,  Mary  of  England 
— did  their  crowns  save  them?  No  ruler  ever  sat  so  high 
that  the  King  of  kings  was  not  above  him.  All  victors 
shall  bow  before  him  who  on  the  white  horse  goeth  forth 
conquering  and  to  conquer. 

GOOD  MANNERS    IS  ANOTHER  CLOAK. 

Again,  elegance  of  manners  cannot  successfully  hide 
iniquity  from  the  eye  of  God.  That  model,  gentlemanly 
apostle,  Paul,  writes  to  us:  "Be  courteous."  That 
man  can  neither  be  a  respectable  worldling  nor  a  consis- 
tent Christian  who  lacks  good  manners.  He  is  shut  out 
from  refined  circles,  and  he  certainly  ought  to  be  hinder- 
ed from  entering  the  church.  We  cannot  overlook  that 
in  a  man  which  we  could  hardly  excuse  in  a  bear.  One 
of  the  first  effects  of  the  grace  of  God  upon  an  individual 
is  to  make  him  a  gentleman.  Gruffness,  awkwardness, 
implacability,  clannishness  are  fruits  of  the  devil,  while 
gentleness,  and  meekness  are  fruits  of  the  Spirit.  But 
while  these  excellences  of  manner  are  so  important,  they 
cannot  hide  any  deformity  of  moral  character.  How 
often  is  it  that  we  find  attractiveness  of  person,  suavity 
of  manners,  gracefulness  of  conversation,  gallantry  of 
behavior,  thrown  like  wreaths  upon  moral  death.  The 
flowers  that  grow  upon  the  scoriae  of  Vesuvius  do  not 
make  it  any  less  of  a  volcano.  The  sepulchers  in  Christs's 
time    did  not  exhaust    all  the  whitewash.        Some  of  the 


I  88  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

biggest  scoundrels  have  been  the  most  fascinating.  If 
there  are  any  depending  on  outward  gracefulness,  and 
attractiveness  of  demeanor,  with  any  hope  that  because 
of  that  God  will  forgive  the  sin  of  their  soul,  let  me 
assure  them  that  the  divine  justice  cannot  be  satisfied 
with  smiles  and  elegant  gesticulation.  Christ  looks 
deeper  than  the  skin,  and  such  a  ragged  cloak  as  the  one 
in  which  you  are  trying  to  cover  yourself  will  be  no  hiding 
in  the  day  of  His  power.  God  will  not  in  the  judgment, 
ask  how  gracefully  you  walked,  nor  how  politely  you 
bowed,  nor  how  sweetly  you  smiled,  nor  how  impressively 
you  gestured.  The  deeds  done  in  the  body  will  be  the 
test,  and  not  the  rules  of  Lord  Chesterfield. 

PROFESSION  OF  RELIGION   IS  OFTEN  A  CLOAK. 

Again,  let  me  say  that  the  mere  profession  of  religion 
is  but  a  poor  wrapping  of  a  naked  soul.  The  importance 
of  making  a  public  profession  of  religion  if  the  heart  be 
renewed  cannot  be  exaggerated.  Christ  positively  and 
with  the  earnestness  of  the  night  before  His  crucifixion 
commanded  it.  But  it  is  the  result  of  Christian  charac- 
ter, not  the  cause  of  it.  Our  church  certificate  is  but  a 
poor  title  to  heaven.  We  may  have  the  name;  and  not 
thj  reality.  There  are  those  who  seems  to  throw  them- 
selves back  with  complacency  upon  there  public  confes- 
sion of  Christ,  although  they  give  no  signs  of  renewal. 
If  Satan  can  induce  a  man  to  build  on  such  a  rotten 
foundation  as  that  he  has  acomplished  his  object.  We 
cannot  imagine  the  abhorence  with  which  God  looks  up- 
on such  a  procedure.  What  would  be  the  feelings  of  a 
shepherd  if  he  saw  a  wolf  in  the  same  fold  with  his  flocks, 
however  quiet  he  might  seem  to  lie,  or  a  general  if  among 


CLOAKS  FOR  SIN.  I  89 

his  troops  he  saw  one  wearing  the  appointed  uniform 
who  nevertheless  really  belonged  to  the  opposing  host? 
Thus  must  the  heavenly  shepherd  look  upon  those  who, 
though  they  are  not  his  sheep,  have  climbed  up  some 
other  way,  and  thus  must  the  Lord  of  hosts  look  upon 
those  who  pretend  to  be  soldiers  of  the  cross  while  they 
are  his  armed  enemies.  If  any  of  you  find  yourself  de- 
ficient in  the  great  test  of  Christian  character,  do  not,  I 
beg  of  you,  look  upon  your  profession  of  religion  as  any- 
thing consolitory.  If  you  have  taken  your  present  posi- 
tion from  a  view  that  you  have  of  Christ  and  your  need 
of  him,  rejoice  with  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory 
and  clap  your  hands  for  gladness;  but  if  you  find  yourself 
with  nothing  but  the  name  of  life,  while  dead  in  tres- 
passes and  sins,  arouse  before  the  door  is  shut.  That 
gilded  profession — the  world  may  not  be  able  to  see 
through  it,  but  in  the  day  of  divine  reckoning,  it  will  be 
found  that  you  have  no  cloak  for  your  sin. 

OUTWARD    MORALITY. 

Furthermore,  outward  morality  will  be  no  covering  for 
the  hidden  iniquity  of  the  spirit.  The  Gospel  ol  Christ 
makes  no  assault  upon  good  works.  They  are  as  beauti- 
ful in  God's  eye  as  in  ours.  Punctuality,  truthfulness, 
almgiving,  affection  and  many  other  excellences  of  life 
that  might  be  mentioned,  will  always  be  admired  of  God 
and  man,  but  we  take  the  position  that  good  works  can- 
not be  the  ground  of  our  salvation.  What  we  do  right 
cannot  pay  for  what  we  do  wrong.  Admit  that  you  have 
all  those  traits  of  character  which  give  merely  worldly  re- 
spectability and  influence,  you  must  at  the  same  time 
acknowledge  that  during  the  course  of  your  life  you  have 


tQO  EVILS  OF    THE   CITIES. 

done  many  things  you  ought  not  to  have  done. 

CHRIST  IS  THE  ATONING  SAVIOUR. 

How  are  these  difficult  matters  to  be  settled?  Ah,  my 
friends,,  we  must  have  an  atonement.  No  Christ,  no 
salvation.  The  great  Redeemer  comes  in  and  says:  "I 
will  pay  your  indebtedness."  So  that  which  was  dark 
enough  before  is  bright  enough  now.  The  stripes  that 
we  deserve  are  fallen  upon  Christ.  On  his  scourged 
and  bleeding  shoulders  he  carries  us  up  over  the  moun- 
tain of  our  sins  and  the  hills  of  our  iniquities.  Christ's 
good  works  accepted  are  sufficient  for  us,  but  they  who 
reject  them,  depending  upon  their  own,  must  perish. 
Traits  of  character  that  may  make  us  influential  on  earth 
will  not  necessarily  open  to  us  the  gate  of  heaven.  The 
plank  that  will  be  strong  enough  for  a  house  floor  would 
not  do  for  a  ships  hulk.  Mere  reality  might  be  enough 
here,  but  cannot  take  you  through  death's  storm  into 
heaven's  harbor.  Christ  has  announced  for  all  ages:  "I 
am  the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life;  him  that  cometh  unto 
me  I  will  in  no  wise  cast  out."  But  pitable  in  the  day  of 
accounts  will  be  the  condition  of  the  man,  though  he 
may  have  given  all  his  estate  to  benevolent  purposes, 
and  passed  his  life  in  the  visiting  of  the  distressed,  and 
done  much  to  excite  the  admiration  of  the  good  and  the 
great,  if  he  have  no  intimate  relation  to  Jesus  Christ. 
There  is  a  pride  and  a  depravity  in  his  soul  that  he  has 
never  discovered.  A  brilliant  outside  will  be  no  apology 
for  a  depraved  inside.  It  is  no  theory  of  mine,  but  an 
announcement  of  God,  who  cannot  lie:  "By  the  deeds 
of  the  law  shall  no  flesh  living  be  justified."  Open  the 
door  of  heaven  and  look  in.        Howard  is    there,    but  he 


CLOAKS  FOR  SIN.  191 

did  not  secure  his  entrance  by  the  dungeons  he  illutriined 
and  the  lazzarettos  into  which  he  carried  the  medicines. 
Paul  is  there,  but  he  did  not  earn  his  way  in  by  the  ship- 
wrecks and  imprisonments  and  scourgings.  On  a  throne 
overtopping  perhaps  all  other,  except  Christ's,  the  old 
missionary  exclaims;  "By  the  grace  of  God  I  am  what 
I  am." 

HEAVEN  CANNOT  BE  BOUGHT. 

Again,  exalted  social  position  will  be  no  cloak  for  sin. 
Men  look  through  the  wicked  door  of  prisons,  and  seeing 
the  incarcerated  wretches  exclaim,  "Oh,  how  much  vice 
there  is  in  the  world!"  And  they  pass  through  the  de- 
graded streets  of  a  city,  and  looking  into  the  doors  of 
hovels  and  the  dens  of  corruption  they  call  them  God- 
forsaken abodes.  But  you  might  walk  along  the  avenues 
through  which  the  opulent  rolls  in  their  flourishing  pomp, 
and  into  mansions  elegantly  adorned,  and  And  that  even 
in  the  admired  walks  of  life  Satan  works  mischief  and 
death.  The  first  temptation  Satan  wrought  in  a  garden, 
and  he  understands  yet  most  thoroughly  how  to  insinuate 
himself  into  any  door  of  ease  and  splendor.  Men  fre- 
quently judge  of  sin  by  the  plaees  in  which  it  is  com- 
mitted, but  iniquity  in  satin  is  to  God  as  loathsome  as 
iniquity  in  rags,  and  in  the  Day  of  Judgment  the  sins  of 
Madison  avenue  and  Elm  street  will  all  be  driven  in  one 
herd. 

Men  cannot  escape  at  last  for  being  respectably  sinful. 
You  know  Dives  was  clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen  and 
fared  sumptuously  every  day,  but  his  fine  clothes  and 
good  dinners  did  not  save  him.  He  might  on  earth  have 
drank  something  as   rich  as  champagne  and  cognac,    but 


192  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

at  last  he  asked  for  one  drop  of  water.  You  cannot 
trade  off  your  attractive  abodes  here  for  a  house  of  many 
mansions  on  high,  and  your  elegant  shade  groves  here 
will  not  warrant  you  a  seat  under  the  tree  of  life.  When 
God  drove  Adam  and  Eve  out  of  Eden  He  showed  that 
merely  living  in  a  garden  of  delights  and  comforts  will 
never  save  a  man  or  a  woman.  By  giving  you  so  much 
earthly  luxury  and  refinement  He  intimated  that  He  would 
have  you  enjoy  yourselves,  but  He  would  not  have  you 
wrap  yourself  up  in  them  as  a  cloak  to  hide  your  sins. 
God  now  walks  in  your  garden  as  He  did  in  Eden,  even 
in  the  cool  of  the  day,  and  He  stands  by  your  well  as  He 
did  by  a  well  in  Samaria,  and  He  would  make  your  com- 
fort on  earth  a  type  of  your  rapture  in  heaven. 

ORTHODOXY  CANNOT  HIDE  OUR  INIQUITY. 

Furthermore,  mere  soundness  of  religious  belief  will 
not  hide  our  iniquities;  There  are  men  whose  heads  are 
as  sound  as  Jonathan  Edwards'  or  John  Wesley's,  whose 
hearts  are  as  rotten  as  Tom  Paine's  or  Charles  Guiteau's. 
It  is  important  that  we  be  practical  Christians.  It  is 
utter  folly  in  this  day  for  a  man  to  have  no  preference 
for  any  one  form  of  faith  when  it  is  so  easy  to  become 
conversant  with  the  faith  of  the  different  sects. 

An  intoxicated  man  staggered  into  my  house  one  night 
begging  for  lodging.  He  made  great  pretensions  to  re- 
ligion.     I  asked  where  he  went  to  church. 

He    said:    "Nowhere;   I  belong  to  liberal  Christianity.'' 

But  there  are  those  who  never  become  Christians,  be- 
cause their  obstinancy  prevents  them  from  ever  taking  a 
fair  view  of  what  religion  is.  They  are  like  a  brute  beast 
in  the  fact  that  their  greatest  strength  lies  in  their  horns 


CLOAKS  FOR  SIN.  193 

They  are  combatant,  and  all  they  are  ever  willing  to  do 
for  their  souls  is  to  enter  an  ecclesiastical  fight.  I  have 
met  men  who  would  talk  all  day  upon  the  ninth  chapter 
of  Romans,  who  were  thoroughly  helpless  before  the 
fourteenth  chapter  of  John.  But  there  are  those  who, 
having  escaped  from  this  condition,  are  now  depending 
entirely  upon  their  soundness  of  religious  theory.  The 
doctrines  of  man's  depravity,  and  Christ's  atonement, 
and  God's  sovereignty,  are  theoretically  received  by  them. 
But  alas!  there  they  stop.  It  is  only  the  shell  of  Chris- 
tianity containing  no  evangelical  life.  They  stand  look- 
ing over  into  heaven  and  admire  its  beauty  and  its  song, 
and  are  so  pleased  with  the  looks  from  the  outside,  that 
they  cannot  be  induced  to  enter.  They  could  make  a 
better  argument  for  the  truth  than  ten  thousand  Chris- 
tians who  have  in  their  hearts  received  it.  If  syllogisms 
and  dilemmas,  and  sound  propositions,  and  logical  de- 
ductions, could  save  their  souls,  they  would  be  among 
the  best  of  Christians.  They  could  correctly  define  re- 
pentance, and  faith,  and  the  Atonement,  while  they  have 
never  felt  one  sorrow  for  sin,  nor  exercised  a  moment's 
confidence  in  the  great  sacrifice.  They  are  almost  im- 
movable in  their  position.  We  cannot  present  anything 
about  the  religion  ot  Christ  that  they  do  not  know.  The 
Saviour  described  the  fate  of  such  a  one  in  his  parable: 
"And  that  servant  which  knew  his  Lord's  will  and  pre- 
pared not  himself,  neither  did  according  to  his  will,  shall 
be  beaten  with  many  stripes."  Theories  in  religion  have 
a  beauty  of  their  own,  but  if  they  result  in  no  warmth  of 
Christian  life,  it  is  the  beauty  of  hornblende  and  feldspar. 
Do  not  call  such   coldness  and    hardness  religion.        The 


194  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

River  of  Life  never  freezes  over.  Icicles  never  hang  on 
the  eaves  of  heaven.  Soundness  of  intellectual  belief  is 
a  beautiful  cloak,  well  woven  and  well  cut,  but  in  the 
hour  when  God  shall  demand  our  souls  it  will  not  of  itself 
be  sufficient  to  hide  our  iniquities. 

Christ's  righteousness   is  the  true  cloak  that 
saves  us. 

My  friends,  can  it  be  that  I  have  been  unkind,  and 
torn  from  you  some  hope  upon  which  you  were  resting 
for  time  and  eternity?  Verily,  I  would  be  unkind  if, 
having  taken  away  your  cloak,  I  did  not  offer  something 
better.  This  is  a  cold  world  and  you  want  something  to 
wrap  around  your  spirit.  Christ  offers  you  a  robe  to-day. 
He  wove  it  Himself,  and  He  will  now,  with  his  own  hand 
prepare  it  just  to  fit  your  soul.  The  righteousness  He 
offers  is  like  the  coat  he  used  to  wear  about  Judea,  with- 
out seam  from  top  to  bottom.  There  is  a  day  of  doom. 
Coward  would  I  be  if  I  did  not  dare  tell  you  this.  It 
shall  be  a  day  of  unutterable  disappointment  to  those 
who  have  trusted  in  their  official  dignity,  in  their  elegant 
manners,  in  their  outward  morality,  in  their  soundness  of 
intellectual  belief.  But  I  see  a  soul  standing  before  God 
who  once  was  thoroughly  defiled.  Yet  look  at  him,  and 
you  cannot  find  a  single  transgression  anywhere  about 
him.  How  is  this,  you  ask.  Was  he  not  once  a  Sab- 
bath breaker,  a  blasphemer,  a  robber,  a  perjurer,  a  thief, 
a  murderer?  Yes,  but  Christ  hath  cleansed  him.  Christ 
hath  lifted  him  up.  Christ  hath  rent  off  his  rags.  Christ 
hath  robed  him  in  a  spotless  robe  of  righteousness.  That 
is  the  reason  why  you  cannot  see  his  former  degradation. 
This  glorious  hope  in  Christ's   name  is   proffered  to-day. 


CLOAKS  FOR  SIN.  195 

Wandering  and  wayward  soul,  is  not  this  salvation  worth 
coming  for,  worth  striving  for?  Do  you  wonder  that  so 
many,  with  bitter  weeping,  have  besought  it,  and  with  a 
very  enthusiasm  of  sorrow,  cried  for  divine  compassion? 
Do  you  wonder  at  the  earnestness  of  those  who  stand  in 
pulpits,  beseeching  men  to  be  reconciled  to  God?  Nay, 
do  not  wonder  at  the  importunity  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  now  striveth  with  thy  soul?  In  many  of  the  palaces 
of  Europe  the  walls  are  mosaic.  Fragments  of  shells 
and  glass  are  arranged  by  artists  and  aggregated  into  a 
pictorial  splendor.  What!  made  out  of  broken  shells  and 
broken  glass!  Oh,  yes:  God  grant  that  by  the  trans- 
forming power  of  his  Spirit  we  may  all  be  made  a  part  of 
the  eternal  palaces,  our  broken  and  fragmentary  natures 
polished,  and  shaped,  and  lifted  up  to  make  a  part  of  the 
everlasting  splendors  of  the  heavenly  temple! 

For  sinners,  Lord,  thou  cam'st  to  bleed, 

And  I'm  a  sinner  vile  indeed. 
Lord,  I  believe  thy  grace  is  free; 

Oh  magnify  thy  grace  in  me. 


THE  SEA-CAPTAIN'S  CALL. 

"So  the  shipmaster  came  to  him,  and  said  unto  him,  What  meanest 
thou,  O  sleeper?  Arise,  call  upon  thy  God,  if  so  be  that  God  will  think 
upon  us,  that  we  perish  not." — Jonah  i.,  6. 

od  told  Jonah  to  go  to  Nineveh  on  an  unpleasant 
.errand!  He  would  not  go.  He  thought  to  get 
.away  from  his  duty  by  putting  to  sea.  With  pack 
under  his  arm,  I  find  him  on  his  way  to  Joppa,  a  sea- 
port. He  goes  down  among  the  shipping,  and  says  to 
the  men  lying  around  on  the  docks,  "Which  of  these 
vessels  sails  to-day?"  The  sailors  answer,  "Yonder  is 
a  vessel  going  to  Tarshish.  I  think,  if  you  hurry,  you 
may  get  on  board  her."  Jonah  steps  on  board  the  rough 
craft,  asks  how  much  the  fare  is,  and  pays  it.  Anchor  is 
weighed,  sails  are  hoisted,  and  the  rigging  begins  to  rattle 
in  the  strong  breeze  of  the  Mediterranean.  Joppa  is  an 
exposed  harbor,  and  it  does  not  take  long  for  the  vessel 
to  get  out  on  the  broad  sea.  The  sailors  like  what  they 
call  a  "spanking  breeze,"  and  the  plunge  of  the  vessel 
from  the  crest  of  a  tall  wave  is  exhilarating  to  those  at 
home  on  the  deep.  But  the  strong  breeze  becomes  a 
gale,  the  gale  a  hurricane.  The  affrighted  passengers 
ask  the  captain  if  he  ever  saw  anything  like  this  before. 
"Oh  yes,"  he  says;  "this  is  nothing."  Mariners  are 
slow  to  admit  danger  to  landsmen.  But,  after  a  while, 
crash  goes  the  mast,  and  the  vessel  pitches  so  far  "a- 
beams-end"  there  is  a  fear  she  will  not  be  righted.  The 
captain  answers  few  questions,  and  orders  the  throwing 
out  of  boxes  and  bundles,  and  of  so  much   of  the  cargo  as 

(i96) 


THE    SEA-CAPTAINS    CALL.  1 97 

they  can  get  at.  The  captain  at  last  confesses  that  there 
is  but  little  hope,  and  tells  the  passengers  that  they  had 
better  go  to  praying.  It  is  seldom  that  a  sea-captain  is 
an  Atheist.  He  knows  that  there  is  a  God,  for  he  has 
seen  him  at  every  point  of  latitude  between  Sandy  Hook 
and  Queenstown.  Captain  Moody,  commanding  the 
Cuba,  of  the  Cunard  line,  at  Sunday  service  led  the  music 
and  sang  like  a  Methodist.  The  captain  of  this  Med- 
iterranean craft,  having  set  the  passengers  to  praying, 
goes  around  examining  the  vessel  at  every  point.  He 
descends  into  the  cabin  to  see  whether,  in  the  strong 
wrestling  of  the  waves,  the  vessel  has  sprung  aleak,  and 
he  finds  Jonah  asleep.  Jonah  had  had  a  wearisome 
L'ramp,  and  had  spent  many  sleepless  nights  about  ques- 
tions of  duty,  and  he  is  so  sound  asleep  that  all  the  thun- 
der of  the  storm  and  the  screaming  of  the  passengers 
does  not  disturb  him.  The  captain  lays  hold  of  him,  and 
begins  to  shake  him  out  of  his  unconsciousness  with  the 
cry,  "Don't  you  see  that  we  are  all  going  to  the  bottom? 
Wake  up,  and  go  to  praying,  if  you  have  any  God  to  go 
to.  What  meanest  thou,  O  sleeper?  Arise,  call  upon 
thy  God,  if  so  be  that  God  will  think  upon  us,  that  we 
perish  not."  The  rest  of  the  story  I  will  not  rehearse, 
for  you  know  it  well.  To  appease  the  sea,  they  threw 
Jonah  overboard. 

HOW  THE  DEVIL  CHEATS  YOU. 

Learn  that  the  devil  takes  a  man's  money  and  then 
sets  him  down  in  a  poor  landing-place.  The  Bible  says 
he  paid  his  fare  to  Tarshish.  But  see  him  get  out.  The 
sailors  bring  him  to  the  side  of  the  ship,  lift  him  over 
"the  guards,"  and  let  him    drop  with  a  loud  splash   into 


I98  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

the  waves.  He  paid  his  fare  all  the  way  to  Tarshish,  but 
did  not  get  the  worth  of  his  money.  Neither  does  any 
one  who  turns  his  back  on  his  duty  and  does  that  which 
is  not  right. 

There  is  a  young  man  who,  during  the  past  year,  has 
spent  a  large  part  of  his  salary  in  carousal.  What  has 
he  gained  by  it?  A  soiled  reputation,  a  half-starved 
purse,  a  dissipated  look,  a  petulant  temper,  a  disturbed 
conscience.  The  manacles  of  one  or  two  bad  habits  that 
are  pressing  tighter  and  tighter  will  keep  on  until  they 
wear  to  the  bone.  You  paid  your  fare  to  Tarshish,  but 
you  have  been  set  down  in  the  midst  of  a  sea  of  disquie- 
tude and  perplexity. 

Ohe  hundred  dollars  for  Sunday  horse-hire! 

One  hundred  dollars  for  wine-suppers! 

One  hundred  dollars  for  cigars! 

One  hundred  dollars  for  frolics  that  shall  be  nameless! 

Making  four  hundred  dollars  for  his  damnation! 

Instead  of  being  in  Tarshish  to-night,  he  is  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  Mediterranean. 

A     LITERARY  JONAH. 

Here  is  a  literary  man,  tired  of  the  faith  of  his  fathers, 
who  resolved  to  launch  out  into  what  is  called  Free-think- 
ing. He  buys  Theodore  Parker's  works  for  twelve  dol- 
lars; Renan's  Life  of  Christ  for  one  dollar  and  fifty  cents; 
Andrew  Jackson  Davis's  works  for  twenty  dollars.  Goes 
to  hear  infidels  talk  at  the  clubs,  and  to  see  spiritualism 
at  the  table-rapping.  Talks  glibly  of  David,  the  Psal- 
mist, as  an  old  libertine;  of  Paul  as  a  wild  enthusiast; 
and  of  Christ  as  a  decent  kind  of  a  man — a  little  weak  in 
some  respects,    but  almost  as   good    as  himself.        Talks 


199 

smilingly  of  Sunday  as  a  good  day  to  put  a  little  extra 
blacking  on  one's  boots;  and  of  Christians  as,  for  the 
most  part,  hypocrites;  and  of  eternity  as  "the  great  to 
be,"  "the  everlasting  now,"  or  "the  infinite  what  is  it." 
Some  day  he  gets  his  feet  very  wet,  and  finds  himself  that 
night  chilly.  The  next  morning  has  a  hot  mouth  and  is 
headachy.  Sends  word  over  to  the  store  that  he  will 
not  be  there  to-day.  Bathes  his  feet;  has  mustard- 
plasters;  calls  the  doctor.  The  medical  man  says  aside, 
'  'This  is  going  to  be  a  bad  case  of  congestion  of  the  lungs. '' 
Voice  fails.  Children  must  be  kept  down  stairs,  or  sent 
to  the  neighbors,  to  keep  the  house  quiet?  You  say, 
"Send  for  the  minister."  But  no;  he  does  not  believe  in 
ministers.  You  say,  "Read  the  Bible  to  him."  No; 
he  does  not  believe  in  the  Bible.  A  lawyer  comes  in, 
and  sitting  by  his  bedside,  writes  a  document  that  be- 
gins, "In  the  name  of  God,  Amen.  I,  being  of  sound 
mind,  do  make  this  my  last  will  and  testament."  It  is 
certain  where  the  sick  man's  body  will  be  in  less  than  a 
week.  It  is  quite  certain  who  will  get  his  property.  But 
what  will  become  of  his  soul?  It  will  go  into  "the  great 
to  be,"  or  "the  everlasting  now,"  or  "the  infinite  what  is 
it."  His  soul  is  in  deep  waters,  and  the  wind  is  "blow- 
ing great  guns."  Death  cries,  "Overboard  with  the  un- 
believer!" A  splash!  He  goes  to  the  bottom.  He  paid 
five  dollars  for  his  ticket  to  Tarshish  when  he  bought  the 
infidel  books.      He  landed  in  perdition! 

SATAN  SINKS    YOUR  CAPITAL. 

Every  farthing  you  spend  in  sin  Satan  will  swindle  you 
out  of.  He  promises  you  shall  have  thirty  per  cent  or  a 
great  dividend.        He  lies.        He  will  sink  all  the  capital. 


200  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

You    may  pay  full  fare  to   some  sinful    success,    but  you 
will  never  get  to  Tarshish. 

SLEEPING  IN  THE     MIDST  OF  DANGER. 

Learn  how  soundly  men  will  sleep  in  the  midst  of 
danger.  The  worst  sinner  on  shipboard,  considering  the 
light  he  had,  was  Jonah.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
Church,  while  they  were  heathen  The  sailors  were  en- 
gaged in  their  lawful  calling,  following  the  sea.  The 
merchants  on  board,  I  suppose,  were  going  down  to  Tar- 
shish to  barter;  but  Jonah,  notwithstanding  his  Chris- 
tian profession,  was  flying  from  duty.  He  was  sound 
asleep  in  the  cabin.  He  had  been  motionless  for  hours 
— his  arms  and  feet  in  the  same  posture  as  when  he  lay 
down — his  breast  heaving  with  deep  respiration.  Oh! 
how  could  the  sinner  sleep!  What  if  the  ship  struck  a 
rock!  what  if  it  spr?ng  aleak!  what  if  the  clumsy  Ori- 
ental craft  should  capsize!  What  would  become  of  Jonah? 

So  men  sleep  soundly  now  amid  perils  infinite.  In 
almost  every  place,  I  suppose,  the  Mediterranean  might 
be  sounded,  but  no  line  is  long  enough  to  fathom  the  pro- 
found beneath  every  impenitent  man.  Plunging  a  thou- 
sand fathoms  ^own,  you  cannot  touch  bottom.  Eternity 
beneath  him,  before  him,  around  him!  Rocks  close  by, 
and  whirlpools,  and  hot-breathed  Levanters:  yet  sound 
asleep!  We  try  to  wake  him  up,  but  fail.  The  great 
surges  of  warning  break  over  the  hurricane-deck — the 
gong  of  warning  sounds  through  the  cabin — the  bell  in 
the  wheel-house  rings.  *  'Awake!"  cry  a  hundred  voices; 
yet  sound  asleep  in  the  cabin. 

A  SHIP    FULL  OF  DEAD  MEN. 

In  the  year  1775,  the  captain  of  a  Greenland   whaling 


THE  SEA-CAPTAIN'S  CALL.  201 

vessel  found  himself  at  night  surrounded  by  icebergs,  and 
"lay  to"  until  morning,  expecting  every  moment  to  be 
ground  to  pieces.  In  the  morning  he  looked  about,  and 
saw  a  ship  near  by.  He  hailed  it.  No  answer.  Getting  in- 
to a  boat  with  some  of  the  crew,  he  pushed  on  for  the 
mysterious  craft.  Getting  near  by,  he  saw  through  the 
port-hole  a  man  at  a  stand,  as  though  keeping  a  log- 
book. He  hailed  him.  No  answer.  He  went  onboard 
the  vessel,  and  found  the  man  sitting  at  the  log-book, 
frozen  to  death.  The  log-book  was  dated  1762,  showing 
that  the  vessel  had  been  wandering  for  thirteen  years 
among  the  ice.  The  sailors  were  found  frozen  among 
the  hammocks,  and  others  in  the  cabin.  For  thirteen 
years  this  ship  had  been  carrying  its  burden  of  corpses. 
So  from  this  Gospel  craft  to-night  I  descry  voyagers 
for  eternity.  I  cry,  "Ship  ahoy!  ship  ahoy!"  No  an. 
swer.  They  float  about,  tossed  and  ground  by  the  ice- 
bergs of  sin,  hoisting  no  sail  for  heaven.  I  go  on  board. 
I  find  all  asleep.  It  is  a  frozen  sleep.  O  that  my  Lord 
Jesus  would  come  aboard,  and  lay  hold  of  the  wheel,  and 
steer  the  craft  down  into  the  warm  Gulf  Stream  of  his 
mercy!  Awake,  thou  that  sleepest!  Arise  from  the 
dead,  and  Christ  shall  give  thee  life. 

AROUSED  BY  UNEXPECTED  MEANS. 

Again:  Notice  that  men  are  aroused  by  the  most  un- 
expected means.  If  Jonah  had  been  told  one  year  be- 
fore that  a  heathen  sea-captain  would  ever  awaken  him 
to  a  sense  of  danger,  he  would  have  scoffed  at  the  idea; 
but  here  it  is  done.  So  now,  men  in  strangest  ways  are 
aroused  from  spiritual  stupor.  A  profane  man  is  brought 
to  conviction  by  the  shocking  blasphemy   of  a    comrade. 


202  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

A  man  attending  church,  and  hearing  a  sermon  from 
the  text,  "The  ox  knoweth  his  owner. "  etc.,  goes  home 
unimpressed;  but,  crossing  his  barn-yard,  an  ox  comes 
up  and  licks  his  hand,  and  he  says,  ''There  it  is  now — 
'the  ox  knoweth  his  owner,  and  the  ass  his  master's  crib, 
but  I  do  not  know  God."  The  careless  remark  of  a 
teamster  has  led  a  man  to  thoughtfulness  and  heaven. 
The  child's  remark,  ''Father,  they  have  prayers  at  uncle's 
house — why  don't  we  have  them?"  has  brought  salvation 
to  the  dwelling. 

Some  man  came  in  here  to-night  hardly  knowing  why 
he  came.  He  had  heard  that  Talmage  is  an  odd  man, 
and  has  come  to  see  whether  it  is  true.  But  before  this 
service  is  done  that  man  will  begin  to  think  about  his 
soul.  He  has  been  upon  his  last  spree.  He  has  made 
his  last  visit  to  that  bad  house.  His  children  will  to- 
morrow morning  notice  the  change.  This  moment  he 
starts  heavenward;  and  for  all  eternity  he  will  bless  God 
for  this  visit  to  the  Brooklyn  Tabernacle. 

By  strangest  way  and  in  most  unexpected  manner  men 
are  awakened.  The  gardener  of  the  Countess  of  Hunt- 
ingdon was  convicted  of  sin  by  hearing  the  countess  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  wall  talk  about  Jesus.  John 
Hardoak  was  aroused  by  a  dream,  in  which  he  saw  the 
last  day,  and  the  Judge  sitting,  and  heard  his  own  name 
called  with  terrible  emphasis:  "John  Hardoak,  come  to 
judgment!"  The  Lord  has  a  thousand  ways  of  waking 
up  Jonah.  Would  that  the  messengers  of  mercy  might 
this  night  find  their  way  down  into  the  sides  of  the  ship, 
and  that  many  who  are  unconsciously  rocking  in  the 
awful  tempest    of   their   sin    might    hear   the   warning, 


THE  SEA-CAPTAIN'S  CALL.  203 

<4What  meanest  thou,    0  sleeper?    Arise,  and  call  upon 
thy  God!" 

WE    MAY  WAKE     UP  TOO  LATE. 

Again:  Learn  that  a  man  may  wake  up  too  late.  If  in- 
stead of  sleeping,  Jonah  had  been  on  his  knees  confessing 
his  sins  from  the  time  he  went  on  board  the  craft,  I  think 
that  God  would  have  saved  him  from  being  thrown  over- 
board. But  he  woke  up  too  late.  The  tempest  is  in  full 
blast,  and  the  sea,  in  convulsion,  is  lashing  itself,  and 
nothing  will  stop  it  now  but  the  overthrow  of  Jonah. 

So  men  sometimes  wake  up  too  late.  The  last  hour 
has  come.  The  man  has  no  more  idea  of  dying  than  I 
have  of  dropping  down  this  moment.  The  rigging  is  all 
white  with  the  foam  of  death.  How  chill  the  night  is! 
"I  must  die,"  he  says,  ''yet  not  ready.  I  must  push  out 
upon  this  awful  sea,  but  have  nothing  with  which  to  pay 
my  fare,  The  white  caps!  the  darkness!  the  hurricane! 
How  long  have  I  been  sleeping?  Whole  days,  and 
months,  and  years.  I  am  quite  awake  now.  I  see  every 
thing,  but  it  is  too  late."  Invisible  hands  take  him  up. 
He  struggles  to  get  loose.  In  vain.  They  bring  his  soul 
to  the  verge.  They  let  it  down  over  the  side.  The 
wind  howls.  The  sea  opens  its  frothing  jaws  to  swal- 
low. The  lightnings  hold  their  torches  at  the  soul's 
burial.  The  thunders  toll  their  bells  as  he  drops.  Eter- 
nal death  catches  him.  He  has  gone  forever.  And  while 
the  cavass  cracked,  and  the  yards  rattled,  and  the  ropes 
thumped,  the  sea  took  up  the  funeral  dirge,  playing, 
with  open  diapason  of  midnight  storm,  "Because  I  have 
called,  and  ye  refused;  I  have  stretched  out  my  hand, 
and  no  man  regarded;  but  ye  have  set  at    naught    all  my 


204  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

counsel,  and  would  none  of  my  reproof;  I  also  will 
laugh  at  your  calamity:  I  will  mock  when  your  fear 
cometh." 

WE  MAY  NOT  WAKE  UP  AT  ALL. 

But  sometimes  men  do  not  wake  up  even  in  the  last 
hour  of  life.  Men  often  die  in  sickness  with  befogged 
brain,  and  while  the  friends  stand  weeping,  the  dying 
man  looks  around  and  wonders  what  it  all  means,  or  is 
too  stupid  to  notice  the  weeping.  Now  the  pulse  of  the 
sick  man  is  up  to  no!  It  gets  feebler:  90,  80,  60,  50 — - 
pulse  all  gone!  The  gates  of  the  body  open,  and  the 
soul  passes  out,  and,  for  the  first  time  wakes  up.  "What 
is  this?"  it  cries — "These  sounds,  these  terrors?"  Wide 
awake  now,  but  what  is  it?  A  voice  sounds  through  the 
darkness:  "This  is  not  the  Mediterranean  on  which  thou 
sailest,  nor  the  Euroclydon  which  has  come  upon  thee. 
It  is  the  boundless  ocean  of  Eternity,  and  this  battle  of 
wind  and  wave  is  an  everlasting  storm.  Voyagers  upon 
this  sea  sail  on  forever,  yet  get  to  no  port.  The  ship 
that  staggers  in  these  troughs  of  death  rises  not  upon  the 
crest  save  to  plunge  to  deeper  depths? 

The  needle  of  the  compass  points  to  no  star,  but 
wanders  in  the  box  after  light,  but  finding  only  darkness. 
They  who  run  up  the  ratlines  to  reef  the  sail  are  frozen 
fast  in  the  rigging.  He  who  commands  this  ship  hath 
an  iron  face,  and  wrings  his  hands,  and  wishes  they 
might  founder  and  be  at  rest;  and  curses  the  night,  and 
curses  the  wind,  and  curses  the  wave.  His  name  is  De- 
spair. The  boatswain's  whistle  is  a  shriek;  and  the 
white-cheeked  lay  hold  of  the  ropes  and  pull  altogether, 
their  cry  is,  'Haul  away,  lads,  the  harvest  is  past!     Haul 


THE  SEA-CAPTAIN'S  CALL.  205 

away,  lads,  the  summer  is  ended!'  No  glimpse  of  light- 
house, or  merry  dance  of  light-ship  outside  of  the  harbor. 
No  star  in  the  black  flag  above  the  top-gallants.  Taking 
their  bearings,  they  find  themselves  at  infinite  distance 
from  the  shore  of  earth,  and  at  infinite  distance  from 
the  shore  of  heaven.  The  log-book  tells  of  millions  of 
miles  past,  but  still  voyaging,  Ages  on  ages?  Sailing 
on,  sailing  on!  Eternally,  eternally!  No  hammock  in 
that  forecastle  in  which  to  rest;  no  striking  of  eight  bells 
to  show  that  the  watch  is  out.  They  wake  up  at  last — 
too  late  forever!" 

ARISE,    CALL  UPON  THY  GOD. 

Now,  lest  any  of  you  should  make  this  mistake,  I  ad- 
dress you  in  the  words  of  the  Mediterranean  sea-captan: 
"What  meanest  thou,  O  sleeper?  Arise,  call  upon  thy 
God,  if  so  be  that  God  will  think  upon  us,  that  we  perish 
not."  If  you  have  a  God,  you  had  better  call  upon  him. 
Do  you  say  "I  have  no  God?"  Then  you  had  better 
call  upon  your  father's  God.  When  your  father  was  in 
trouble,  who  did  he  fly  to?  You  heard  him,  in  his  old 
days,  tell  about  some  terrible  exposure  in  a  snow-storm, 
or  at  sea,  or  in  battle,  or  among  midnight  garroters.  and 
how  he  escaped.  Perhaps  twenty  years  before  you  were 
born,  your  father  made   sweet  acquaintance    with    God. 

There  is  something  in  the  worn  pages  of  the  Bible  he 
used  to  read  which  makes  you  think  your  father  had  a 
God.  In  the  o!4  religious  books  lying  around  the  house, 
there  are  passages  marked  with  a  lead-pencil — passages 
that  make  you  think  your  father  was  not  a  godless  man, 
but  that,  on  that  dark  day  when  he  lay  in  the  back  room 
dying,  he  was  ready— Nall  ready.      But  perhaps  your  father 


206  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

was  a  bad  man — prayerless,  and  a  blasphemer,  and  you 
never  think  of  him  now  without  a  shudder.  He  wor- 
shipped the  world  or  his  own  appetites.  Do  riot  then,  I 
beg  of  you,  call  upon  your  father's  God,  but  call  on  your 
mother's  God,      I  think  she  was  good. 

You  remember  when  your  father  came  home  drunk 
late  on  a  cold  night,  how  patient  your  mother  was.  You 
often  heard  her  pray.  She  used  to  sit  by  the  hour  med- 
itating, as  though  she  were  thinking  of  some  good,  warm 
place,  where  it  never  gets  cold,  and  where  the  bread  does 
not  fail,  and  staggering  steps  never  come.  You  remem- 
ber her  now,  as  she  sat,  in  cap  and  spectacles,  reading  her 
Bible  Sunday  afternoons.  What  good  advice  she  used 
to  give  you!  How  black  and  terrible  the  hole  in  the 
ground  looked  to  you  when,  with  two  ropes,  they  let  her 
down  to  rest  in  the  graveyard!  Ah!  I  think  from  your 
looks  that  I  am  on  the  right  track.  Awake,  O  sleeper, 
and  call  upon  thy  mother's  God. 

But  perhaps  both  your  father  and  mother  were  de- 
praved. Perhaps  your  cradle  was  rocked  by  sin  and 
shame,  and  it  is  a  wonder  that  from  such  a  starting  you 
have  come  to  respectability.  Then  don't  call  upon  the 
God  of  either  of  your  parents,  I  beg  of  you. 

But  you  have  children.  You  know  God  kindled  those 
bright  eyes,  and  rounded  those  healthy  limbs,  and  set 
beating  within  their  breast  an  immortality.  Perhaps  in 
the  belief  that  somehow  it  would  be  for  the  best,  you 
have  taught  them  to  say  an  evening  prayer,  and  when 
they  kneel  beside  you,  and  fold  their  little  hands,  and 
look  up,  their  face  all  mnocence  and  love,  you  know  that 
there  is  a  God  somewhere  about  in  the  room. 


THE  SEA-CAPTAIN'S  CALL.  207 

I  think  I  am  on  the  right  track  at  last.  Awake,  O 
sleeper,  and  call  upon  the  God  of  thy  children.  May 
he  set  these  little  ones  to  pulling  at  thy  heart  until  they 
charm  thee  to  the  same  God  to  whom  to-night  they  have 
said  their  little  prayer! 

But,  alas!  alas!  some  of  these  men  and  women  are 
unmoved  by  the  fact  that  their  father  had  a  God,  that 
their  mother  had  a  God,  and  their  children  have  a  God, 
but  they  have  no  God.  All  pious  example  to  them  for 
nothing.  All  the  divine  goodness  for  nothing.  All 
warning  for  nothing.  They  are  sound  asleep  in  the  side 
of  the  ship,  though  the  sea  and  the  sky  are  in  mad  wrestle. 
O  my  God,  wake  them  up!  Drop  a  thunderbolt  upon 
their  coffin-lid  and  wake  them  up! 

STORY  OF  A  WRECKED    HUSBAND. 

Some  years  ago,  a  man,  leaving  his  family  in  Massa- 
chusetts, sailed  from   Boston   to  China,   to  trade  there. 

On  the  coast  of  China,  in  the  midst  of  a  night  of  storm, 
he  made  shipwreck.  The  adventurer  was  washed  up  on 
the  beach  senseless — all  his  money  gone.  He  had  to  beg 
in  the  streets  of  Canton  to  keep  from  starving.  For  two 
years  there  was  no  communication  between  himself  and 
family.  They  supposed  him  dead.  He  knew  not  but 
that  his  family  were  dead. 

He  had  gone  out  as  a  captain.  He  was  too  proud  to 
come  back  as  a  private  sailor.  But  after  awhile  he 
choked  down  his  pride  and  sailed  for  Boston.  Arriv- 
ing there,  he  took  an  evening  train  for  the  centre  of  the 
state  where  he  had  left  his  family.  Taking  the  stage  from 
the  depot,  and  riding  a  score  of  miles;  he  got  home. 
He  says  that,  going  up  in  front  of  the  cottage  in  the  bright 


208  EVILS   OF   THE    CITIES 

moonlight,  the  place  looked  to  him  like  heaven.  He 
rapped  on  the  window,  and  the  affrighted  servant  let  him 
in.  He  went  to  the  room  where  his  wife  and  child  were 
sleeping.  He  did  not  dare  to  wake  them  for  fear  of  the 
shock.  Bending  over  to  kiss  his  child's  cheek,  a  tear  fell 
upon  the  wife's  face,  and  she  wakened,  and  he  said 
"Mary!"  and  she  knew  his  voice,  and  there  was  an  inde- 
scribable scene  of  welcome,  and  joy,  and  thanksgiving  to 
God. 

To-night  I  know  that  many  of  you  are  sea-tossed,  and 
driven  by  sin  in  a  worse  storm  than  that  which  came 
down  on  the  coast  of  China,  and  yet  I  pray  God  that 
you  may,  like  the  sailor,  live  to  get  home.  In  the  house 
of  many  mansions  your  friends  are  waiting  to  meet  you- 
They  are  wondering  why  you  do  not  come.  Escaped 
from  the  shipwrecks  of  earth,  may  you  at  last  go  in!  It 
will  be  a  bright  night — a  very  bright  night  as  you  put 
your  thumb  on  the  latch  of  that  door.  Once  in,  you  will 
find  the  old  family  faces  sweeter  than  when  you  last  saw 
them,  and  there  it  will  be  found  that  He  who  was  your 
father's  God,  and  your  mother's  God,  and  your  children's 
God,  is  your  own  most  blessed  Redeemer,  to  whom  be 
glory  in  the  Church  throughout  all  ages,  world  without 
end.      Amen. 


JESUS   QUESTIONING  THE  DOCTORS. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  CREEDS. 


"He  that  passeth,  by  and  meddleth  with  strife  belonging  not  to  him, 
is  like  one  that  taketh  a  dog  by  the  ears."  Proverbs  xxvi,  17. 

olomon  here  deplores  the  habit  of  rushing 
jn  between  contestants;  of  taking  part  in 
the  antagonisms  of  others;  cf  joining  in 
fights  which  they  ought  to  shun.  They  do  no  good 
to  others,  and  get  damage  for  themselves.  He  com- 
pares it  to  the  experiment  of  taking  a  dog  by  the 
ears.  Nothing  so  irritates  the  canines  as  to  be  clutched 
by  the  lugs.  Take  them  by  the  back  of  the  neck  and 
lift  them  and  it  does  not  seem  to  hurt  or  offend,  but  you 
take  the  dog  by  the  ear,  and  he  will  take  you  with  his 
teeth.  In  all  the  history  of  kennels  no  intelligent  or 
spirited  dog  will  stand  that.  "Now,"  savs  Solomon, 
you  go  into  quarrels  or  controversies  that  are  not  yours 
and  you  will  get  lacerated  and  torn  and  bitten.  "He 
that  passeth  by  and  meddleth  with  strife  belonging  not 
to  him  is  like  one  that  taketh  a  dog  by  the  ears." 

THIS    IS  A  TIME  OF    CHURCH    QUARRELS! 

This  is  a  time  of  resounding  ecclesiastical  quarrels. 
Never  within  your  memory,  -or  mine,  has  the  air  been  so 
full  of  missiles. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  has  on  hand  a  controversy 
so  great  that  it  finds  it  prudent  to  postpone  its  settle- 
ment for  at  least  one  more  year,  hoping  that  something 
will  turn  up.      Somebody  might    die,    or  a    new  Genera] 

[209] 


EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES  210 

Assembly  may  have  grace  to  handle  the  exciting  ques- 
tions. 

The  Episcopal  Church  has  cast  out  some  recalcitrants, 
and  its  digestive  organs  are  taxed  to  the  utmost  in  trying 
to  assimilate  others. 

'  'Shall  women  preach?"  or  "be  sent  as  delegates  to 
Conference?"  are  questions  that  have  put  many  of  our 
Methodist  brethern    on  the  anxious  seat. 

And  the  waters  in  some  of  the  great  baptistries  are 
troubled  waters.  Because  of  the  controversies  through- 
out Christendom  the  air  is  now  like  an  August  afternoon 
about  5  o'clock,  when  it  has  been  steaming  hot  all  day, 
and  clouds  are  gathering  and  there  are  lions  of  thunder 
with  grumbling  voices  and  flashing  eyes  coming  forth  from 
their  cloudy  lairs,  and  people  are  waiting  for  the  full 
burst  of  the  tempest.  I  am  not  much  of  a  weather 
prophet,  but  t.he  clouds  look  to  me  mostly  like  wind 
clouds.  It  may  be  a  big  blow,  but  I  hope  it  will  soon  be 
over. 

RELIGIOUS    CONTROVERSY     IS    DAMMAGlNG. 

In  regard  to  the  battle  of  the  creeds  I  am  every  day  asked 
what  I  think  about  it.  I  want  to  make  it  so  plain  this 
morning  what  I  think,  that  no  one  will  ever  ask  again. 
Let  those  who  are  jurymen  in  the  case  (I  mean  those 
who  in  the  different  ecclesiastical  courts  have  the  ques- 
tions put  directly  before  them)  weigh  and  decide.  Let 
the  rest  of  us  keep  out.  The  most  damaging  thing  on 
earth  is  religious  controversy.  No  one  ever  comes  out 
of  it  as  good  a  man  as  he  goes  in.  Some  of  the  minis- 
ters, in  all  denominations,  who,  before  the  present 
acerbity   were    good   and    kind    and  useful,    now   seem 


THE  BATTLE  OF  CREEDS.  211 

almost  swearing  mad.  These  brethern,  I  notice, 
always  open  their  violent  meetings  with  prayer  before 
devouring  each  other,  thus  saying  grace  before  meat. 
They  have  a  moral  hydrophobia  that  makes  us  think  they 
have  taken  a  dog  by  the  ears.  They  never  read  the 
imprecatory  psalms  of  David  with  such  zest  as  since  the 
Briggs,  and  Newton,  and  McQueary,  and  Bridgman,  and 
Brooks  questions  got  into  full  swing.  May  the  rams  of 
the  sheep  fold  soon  have  their  h  orns  sawed  off.  Be- 
fore the  controversies  are  settled  a  good  many  ministers 
will,  through  what  they  call  liberalism,  be  landed  into 
practical  infidelity.  And  others  through  what  they  call 
conservatism,  will  shrink  up  into  bigots,  tight  and  hard 
as  the  mummies  of  Egypt,  which  got  through  their  con- 
troversies 3,000  years  ago. 

INSPIRED  OF    SATAN. 

This  trouble  throughout  Christendom,  was  directly  in- 
spired of  Satan.  He  saw  that  too  much  good  was  being 
done.  Recruits  were  being  gathered  by  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  to  the  gospel  standard.  The  victories  for 
God  and  the  truth  were  too  near  together.  Too  many 
churches  were  being  dedicated.  Too  many  ministers  were 
being  ordained.  Too  many  philanthropies  were  being 
fostered.  Too  many  souls  were  being  saved.  It  had 
been  a  dull  time  in  the  nether  world,  and  the  arrivals 
were  too  few.  So  Satan  one  day  rose  upon  his  throne, 
and  said:      "Ye  powers  of  darkness,  hear!" 

And  all  up  and  down  the  caverns  the  cry  was:  Hear! 
Hear! 

Satan  said:  ''There  is  that  American  Board  of  Com- 
missioners for  Foreign  Missions.     It  must  either  be    de- 


EVILS   OF   THE    CITIES.  212 

molished  or  crippled,  or  the  first  thing   you   know   they 
will  have  all  nations  brought  to  God. 

SATAN    GIVING   COMMANDS. 

Apollyon  the  Younger!  You  go  up  to  Andover  and 
get  the  Professors  discussing  whether  the  heathen  can 
be  saved  without  the  gospel.  Divert  them  from  the 
work  of  missions  and  get  them  in  angry  convention  in  a 
room  at  Young's  hotel,  Boston,  and  by  the  time  they 
adjourn,  the  cause  of  foreign  missions  will  be  gloriously 
and  magnificently^ injured. 

Diabolus  the  Younger!  You  go  up  and  get  Union 
Theological  Seminary  of  New  York,  and  the  General  As- 
sembly of  the  Presbyterian  Church  at  Detroit,  at  swords' 
points,  and  diverted  from  the  work  of  making  earn- 
est ministers  of  religion,  and  turn  that  old  Presbyterian 
Church,  which  has  been  keeping  us  out  of  customers  for 
hundreds  of  years,  into  a  splendid  pandemonium  on  a 
small  scale. 

Abaddon  the  Third!  You  go  up  and  assault  the  old 
Episcopal  Church,  which  has  been  storming  the  heavens 
for  centuries  with  the  sublimest  prayers  that  were  ever 
uttered — church  of  Bishop  Leighton,  Bishop  White,  and 
Bishop  Mcllvaine,  and  get  that  denomination  discussing 
men  instead  of  discussing  the  eternities. 

Abaddon  IV. !  You  go  up  to  that  old  Methodist 
Church,  which  has  through  her  revivals,  sent  millions  to 
heaven,  which  we  would  otherwise  have  added  to  our 
population,  The  church  of  the  Wesley,  and  Matthew 
Simpson,  against  which  we  have  an  especial  grudge,  and 
get  them  so  absorbed  in  discussing  whether  women 
shall  take  part  in   her  conference,    that    they   shall    not 


THE  BATTLE    OF  CREEDS.  2  I  3 

have    so    much    time  to    discuss    how    many    sons     and 
daughters  she  will  take  to  glory. " 

SPLITTING    UP  THE  CHURCHES. 

What  amazes  me  most  is  that  all  people  do  not  see 
that  the  entire  movement  at  this  time  all  over  Christen- 
dom is  Satanic.  Many  of  the  infernal  attacks  are  sly, 
and  hidden,  and  strategic,  and  so  ingenious  that  they  are 
not  easily  discovered.  But  here  is  a  bold  and  uncovered 
attempt  of  the  powers  of  darkness  to  split  up  the  church- 
es, to  get  ministers  to  take  each  other  by  the  throat,  to 
make  religion  a  laughingstock  of  earth  and  hell,  to  leave 
the  Bible  with  no  more  respect,  or  authenticity,  than  an 
old  almanac  of  1822,  which  told  us  what  would  be  the 
change  of  weather  six  months  ahead  and  in  what  quar- 
ter of  the  months  is  best  to  plant  turnips.  In  a  word, 
the  effort  is  to  stop  the  evangelization  of  the  world.  It 
seems  to  me  very  much  like  this:  There  has  been  a  rail- 
road accident  and  many  are  wounded  and  dying. 

There  are  several  drugstores  near  the  scene  of  casualty. 
All  the  doctors  and  druggists  are  needed,  and  needed 
right  away.  Bandages,  stimulants,  anaesthetics,  medi- 
cines of  all  sorts.  What  are  the  doctors  and  druggists 
doing?  Discussing  the  contents  of  some  old  bottles  on 
the  top  shelf,  bottles  of  medicine  which  some  doctors 
and  druggists  mixed  200,  or  300  years  ago.  "Come, 
doctors!  come  druggists!"  cry  the  people,  "and  help 
these  wounded  and  dying  that  are  being  brought  from 
beneath  the  timbers  of  the  crushed  rail  train.  In  a 
little  while  it  will  be  too  late.  Come  for  God's  sake! 
Come  right  away!"  "No,"  says  the  doctor,  "not  until  ^ve 
have  settled  whether  the  medicine  on  that  top  shelf  was 


EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES.  214 

rightly  mixed.  I  say  there  were  too  many  drops  of  laud- 
anum in  it  and  this  other  man  says  there  were  too  many 
of  camphor,  and  we  must  get  this  question  settled  before 
we  can  attend  to  the  railroad  accident. "  And  one  doc- 
tor takes  another  doctor  by  the  collar,  and  pushes  him 
back  against  the  counter,  and  one  of  the  doctors  says: 
"If  you  will  not  admit  that  I  am  right  about  that  one 
bottle,  I  will  smash  every  bottle  in  your  apothecary 
store,"  and  he  proceeds  to  smash.  Meanwhile,  on  the 
lower  shelf,  plainly  marked  and  within  easy  reach,  are 
all  the  medicines  needed  for  the  helping  of  the  sufferers. 

AND    THE    DOCTORS    ALL    FIGHTING. 

By  the  accident,  and  in  that  drawer,  easily  opened, 
are  bandages  and  splints,  for  the  lack  of  which  fifty  peo- 
ple are  dying  outside  the  drug  store.  Before  I  apply 
this  thought  every  one  sees  its  application.  Here  is  this 
old  world,  and  it  is  off  track.  Sin  and  sorrow  have  col- 
lided with  it.  The  groan  of  agony  is  fourteen  hundred 
million  voiced.  God  has  opened  for  relief,  and  cure  a 
great  Sanitarium,  a  great  House  of  Mercy,  and  all  its 
shelves  are  filled  with  balsams,  with  catholicons,  with 
help,  glorious  help,  tremendous  help,  help  so  easily  ad- 
ministered that  you  need  not  get  upon  any  step-ladder  to 
reach  it.  You  can  reach  it  on  your  knees,  and  then 
hand  it  to  all  the  suffering,  and  the  sinning,  and  the 
dying.  Comfort  for  all  the  troubled!  Pardon  for  all 
the  guilty!  Peace  for  all  the  dying!  But  while  the 
world  is  needing  the  relief  and  perishing  for  lack  of  it, 
what  of  the  church?     Why,  it  is  full  of  fighting  doctors! 

On  the  top  shelf  are  some  old  bottles,  which,  several 
hundred  years  ago.      Calvin,    or  Arminius    or    the  mem- 


THE  BATTLE    OF  CREEDS.  21  5 

bers  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  or  the  farmers  of  the  Nicene 
creed,  filled  with  holy  mixtures,  and  until  we  get  a  revis- 
ion of  these  old  bottles,  and  find  out  whether  we  must 
take  a  teaspoonful,  and  whether  before  or  after  meals, 
let  the  nations  suffer  and  groan,  and  die.  Save  the 
bottles  by  all  means,  if  you  cannot  save  any  thing  else! 

TAKE  NO  PART  IN  THE  CONTROVERSY. 

Now  what  part  shall  you  and  I  take  in  this  controversy 
which  is  filling  all  Christendom  with  clangor?  My 
advice  is;  take  no  part. 

In  time  of  riot  all  mayors  of  cities  advise  good  citi- 
zens to  stay  at  home  or  in  their  places  of  business,  and 
in  this  time  of  religious  riot  I  advise  you  to  go  about 
your  regular  work  of  God.  Leave  the  bottles  on  the 
higher  shelves  for  others  to  fight  about  and  take  the  two 
bottles  on  the  shelf  within  easy  reach;  the  two  bottles 
which  are  all  this  dying  world  needs;  the  one  filled  with 
a  portion  which  is  for  the  cleansing  of  all  sin,  the  other 
filled  with  a  portion  which  is  for  the  soothing  of  all 
suffering. 

Two  Gospel  bottles!  Christ  mixed  them  out  of  his 
own  tears  and  blood,  in  them  is  no  human  admixture, 
spend  no  time  on  the  mysteries!  You,  only  a  man  five 
or  six  feet  high,  ought  not  to  try  to  wade  an  ocean  1,000 
feet  deep.  My  own  experience  has  been  vivid.  I  de- 
voted the  most  of  my  time  for  years  in  trying  to  under- 
stand God's  Eternal  Decrees,  and  I  was  determined  to 
find  out  why  the  Lord  let  sin  come  into  the  world;  and  I 
set  out  to  explore  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and  with  a 
yard-stick  to  measure  the  throne  of  the  infinite.  As  with 
all   my    predecessors,  the    attempt  was    a    dead    failure. 


EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES.  2l6 

For  the  last  thirty  years  I  have  not  spent  two  minutes 
in  studying  the  controverted  points  of  theology,  and  if  I 
live  thirty-five  years  longer  I  will  not  spend  the  thousand- 
the  part  of  a  second  in  such  exploration.  I  know  two 
things  that  I  will  devote  all  the  years  of  my  life  in  pro- 
claiming, God  will  through  Jesus  Christ  pardon  sin, 
and  He  will  comfort  in  trouble. 

A    FOGGY    COAST    FOR    THEOLOGICAL    STUDENTS. 

Creeds  have  their  uses,  but  just  now  the  churches  are 
creeded  to  death.  The  young  men  entering  ministry 
are  going  to  be  launched  in  the  thickest  fog  that  ever 
settled  on  the  coasts.  As  I  am  told  that  in  all  our 
services,  students  of  Princeton,  and  Union  and  Drew 
and  other  theological  seminaries,  are  present  and  as 
these  words  will  come  to  thousands  of  young  men  who 
are  soon  to  enter  the  ministry,  let  me  say  to  such,  and 
through  them  to  their  associates,  keep  out  of  the  be- 
wildering, belittling,  destroying,  and  angry  controversies 
abroad.  The  questions  our  Doctors  of  Divinity  are  try- 
ing to  settle  will  not  be  settled  until  the  day  after  the 
Day  of  Judgment.  It  is  such  a  poor  economy  of  time 
to  spend  years  and  years  in  trying  to  fathom  the  unfath- 
omable, when  in  five  minutes  in  heaven,  we  will  know 
all  that  we  want  to  know. 

WAIT  TILL  WE  GET  OUR  THRONE. 

Wait  until  the  light  of  eternity  flashes  upon  our  newly 
ascended  spirits.  It  is  useless  for  ants  on  different  sides 
of  a  mole-hill  to  try  to  discuss  the  comparative  heights 
of  Mont  Blanc  and  Mount  Washington.  Let  me  say  to 
all  young  men  about  to  enter  the  ministry,  that  soon 
the  greatest  novelty  in  the  world  will  be    the    unadulter- 


THE  BATTLE    OF  CREEDS.  2  I  7 

cited  religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  Preach  that  and  you  will 
have  a  crowd.  The  world  is  sick  to  regurgitation  of  the 
modern  quacks  in  religion.  The  world  has  been  swing- 
ing off  from  the  old  Gospel,  but  it  will  swing  back,  and 
by  the  time  you  young  men  go  into  the  pulpits  the 
cry  will  be  coming  up  from  all  the  millions  of  mankind: 
"Give  us  the  bread  of  life:  no  sweetened  bread,  or  bread 
with  sickly  raisens  stuck  here  and  there  into  it,  but  good 
old-fashioned  bread  as  God,  our  Mother,  mixed  it,  and 
baked  it." 

You  see  God  knew  as  much  when  He  made  the  bible, 
as  He  knows  now.  He  has  not  learned  a  single  thing  in 
6,000  years.  He  knew  at  the  start  that  the  human  race 
would  go  wrong  and  what  would  be  the  best  means  of  its 
restoration  and  redemption.  And  the  law  which  was 
thundered  on  Mt  Sinai,  from  whose  top  I  had  the 
tables  of  stone  in  yonder  wall  transported,  is  the  per- 
fect law.  And  the  Gospel  which  Christ  announced  while 
dying  on  that  Mount  from  which  I  brought  that  stone 
in  yonder  wall,  Paul  preached  on  that  hill  from  which 
I  brought  yonder  granite,  is  the  Gospel  that  is  going 
to  save  the  world.  Young  man  put  on  that  Gospel 
armor!  No  other  sword  will  triumph  like  that.  No 
other  helmet  will  glance  off  the  battle-axes  like  that. 
Our  theological  seminaries  are  doing  glorious  work, 
but  if  our  theological  seminaries  shall  cease  to  pre- 
pare young  men  for  this  plain  Gospel  advocacy,  and 
shall  become  mere  philosophical  schools  for  guessing 
about  God,  and  guessing  about  the  Bible,  and  guessing 
about  the  soul,  they  will  cease  their  usefulness,  and 
young   men   as  in  olden  times,  when    they  would  study 


2i8  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

or  the  G  ospel  ministry,  will  put  themselves  under  the 
care  of  some  intelligent  and  warm  hearted  pastor,  and 
kneel  with  him  in  family  prayer  at  the  parsonage,  and 
go  with  him  into  the  room  of  the  sick  and  the  dying 
and  see  what  victories  the  grace  of  God  can  gain  when 
the  couch  of  the  dying  saint  is  the  Marathon. 

That  is  the  way  the  mighty  ministers  of  the  Gospel 
were  made  in  olden  times.  Oh,  for  a  great  wave  of  re- 
vival to  roll  over  our  theological  seminaries,  and  our  pul- 
pits and  our  churches,  and  our  ecclesiastical  courts,  and 
over  all  Christendom!  That  would  be  the  end  of  con- 
troversy. While  such  a  deluge  would  float  the  ark  of 
God  higher  and  higher,  it  would  put  all  the  bears  and 
tigers  and  reptiles  of  raging  ecclesiasticism  fifteen  cubits 
under. 

WHAT  IS  THE  SIMPLE  FACT? 

Now,  what  is  the  simple  fact  that  you  in  the  pew,  and 
Sabbath-school  class,  and  Reformatory  Association,  and 
we  in  the  pulpits  have  to  deal  with?  It  is  this:  That 
God  has  somewhere — it  matters  not  where,  but  some- 
where— provided  a  great  heaven,  great  for  quietness  for 
those  who  want  quiet,  great  for  vast  assemblage  for  those 
who  like  multitudes,  great  for  architecture  for  those  who 
like  architecture,  great  for  beautiful  landscape  for  those 
who  like  beautiful  landscape,  great  for  music  for  those 
who  like  music,  great  for  processions  for  those  who  like 
armies  on  white  horses,  and  great  for  anything  that  one 
especially  desires  in  such  a  rapturous  dominion;  and 
through  the  doings  of  One  who  was  born  about  five  miles 
south  of  Jerusalem,  and  died  about  ten  minutes'  walk 
from  its  eastern  gate,  all  may  enter  that  great  heaven  for 


THE  BATTLE  OF  CREEDS.  219 

the  earnest  and  heartfelt  asking.  That  is  all.  What, 
then,  is  your  work  and  mine?  Our  work  is  to  persuade 
people  to  face  that  way,  and  start  thitherward,  and  finally 
go  in.  But  has  not  religion  something  to  do  with  this 
world  as  well  as  the  next?  Oh,  yes;  but  do  you  not  see 
that  if  the  people  start  for  heaven,  on  their  way  there 
they  will  do  all  the  good  they  can?  They  will  at  the 
very  start  of  the  journey  get  so  much  of  the  spirit  of 
Christ  which  is  a  spirit  of  kindness  and  self-sacrifice  and 
generosity  and  burden-bearing  and  helpfulness,  that  every 
step  they  take  will  resound  with  good  deeds.  Oh,  get 
your  religion  off  of  stilts!  Get  it  down  out  of  the  high 
towers!  Get  it  on  a  level  with  the  wants  and  woes  of 
our  poor  human  race!  Get  it  out  of  the  dusty  theologi- 
cal books  that  few  people  read,  and  put  it  in  their  hearts 
and  lives.  Good  thing  is  it  to  profess  religion  when  you 
join  the  Church,  but  every  day  somehow  we  ought  to 
profess  religion. 

STORY  OF  A  QUILT. 

A  peculiar  patchwork  quilt  was,  during  the  civil  war 
made  by  a  lady  and  sent  to  the  hospitals  at  the  front. 
She  had  a  boy  in  the  army,  and  was  naturally  interested 
in  the  welfare  of  soldiers.  But  what  a  patchwork  quilt 
she  sent!  On  every  block  of  the  quilt  was  a  passage  of 
Scripture  or  a  verse  of  a  hymn.  The  months  and  years 
of  the  war  went  by.  On  that  quilt  many  a  wounded 
man  had  lain  and  suffered  and  died.  But  one  morning 
the  hospital  nurse  saw  a  patient  under  that  blanket  kiss- 
ing a  figure  of  a  leaf  as  part  of  a  gown  his  mother  used 
to  wear,  and  it  reminded  him  of  home.  "Do  you  know 
where    this    quilt    came  from?"  he   asked.       The    nurse 


220  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

answered:  "I  can  find  out  for  there  was  a  card  pinned 
fast  to  it,  and  I  will  find  that,"  Sure  enough,  it  confirm- 
ed what  he  thought. 

Then  the  nurse  pointed  to  a  passage  of  Scripture  in  the 
block  of  the  quilt,  the  passage  which  says:  "When  he 
was  yet  a  great  way  off,  his  father  saw  him  and  ran  and 
fell  on  his  neck  and  kissed  him."  "Yes,"  said  the  dying 
soldier.  "I  was  a  great  way  off,  but  God  has  met  me 
and  had  compassion  on  me.  "Shall  I  write  to  your 
mother  and  tell  her  that  the  lost  one  is  found  and  the 
dead  is  alive  again?"  He  answered:  "I  wish  you  would, 
if  it  would  not  be  too  much  trouble." 

GO  TO  WORK  FOR  GOD  AND  HUMANITY. 

Do  you  suppose  that  woman  who  made  that  quilt  and 
filled  it  with  Scripture  passages  had  any  trouble  about 
who  Melchizedec  was,  or  how  the  doctrine  of  God's  sover- 
eignty can  be  harmonized  with  man's  free  agency,  or  who 
wrote  the  Pentateuch,  or  the  inconsistencies  of  the 
Nicene  creed?  No,  no.  Go  to  work  for  God  and  suffer- 
ing humanity  and  all  your  doubts  and  fears  and  mysteries 
and  unbeliefs  put  together  will  not  be  heavy  enough  to 
stir  the  chemist's  scales,  which  is  accustomed  to  weigh- 
ing one  fiftieth  part  of  a  grain  of  chamomile  flowers. 

Why  stop  a  moment  to  understand  the  mysteries,  when 
there  are  so  many  certitudes?  Why  spend  our  time  ex- 
ploring the  dark  garrets  and  coal-holes  of  a  great  palace 
which  has  above  ground  one  hundred  rooms  flooded  with 
sunshine?  It  takes  all  my  time  to  absorb  what  has  been 
revealed,  so  that  I  have  no  time  to  upturn  and  root  out 
and  drag  forth  what  has  not  been  revealed.  The  most 
of  the  effort  to    solve   mysteries  and   explore  the  inexpli- 


THE  BANGLE  OF  CREEDS.  221 

cable  and  harmonize  thing's,  is  an  attempt  to  help  the 
Lord  out  of  theological  difficulties.  Good  enough  in- 
tentions, my  brother,  no  doubt;  but  the  Lord  is  not  anx- 
ious to  have  you  help  Him.  He  will  keep  His  throne 
without  your  assistance.  Don't  be  afraid  that  the  Bible 
will  fall  apart  from  inconsistencies.  It  hung  together 
many  centuries  before  you  were  born,  and  your  funeral 
sermon  will  be  preached  from  a  text  taken  from  its  un- 
disturbed authenticity. 

Do  you  know  that  I  think  that  if  all  ministers  in  all 
denominations  would  stop  this  nonsense  of  ecclesiastical 
strife  and  take  hold  the  word  of  God,  the  only  question 
with  each  of  us  being  how  many  souls  we  can  bring  to 
Christ,  and  in  how  short  a  time,  the  Lord  would  soon 
appear  for  the  salvation  of  all  nations? 

QUEEN  VICTORIA'S  VISIT  TO  SCOTLAND. 

When  the  young  Queen  of  England  visited  Scotland  many 
years  ago,  great  preparations  were  made  for  her  reception. 
The  vessel  in  which  she  sailed  was  far  out  at  sea, 
but  every  hill  in  Scotland  was  illumined  with  bonfires  and 
torches.  The  night  was  set  on  fire  with  artificial  illumina- 
tion. The  Queen,  standing  on  the  ship's  deck,  knew  that 
Scotland  was  full  of  heartiest  welcome,  and  the  thunder 
of  the  great  guns  of  Glasgow  and  Edinburgh  castle  woke 
up  all  the  echoes.  Boom!  they  sounded  up  among  the 
hills. 

Do  you  know  that  I  think  that  our  King  would  land  if 
we  were  only  ready  to  receive  Him.  Why  not  call  to 
Him  from  all  our  churches,  from  all  our  hospitals,  from 
all  our  homes?  Why  not  all  at  once  light  all  the  torches 
of  Gospel  invitation?     Why  not  ring  all  the  bells  of  wel- 


EVILS   OF  THE    CITIES.  222 

come?  Why  not  light  up  the  long  night  of  the  world's 
sin  and  suffering  with  bonfires  of  victory?  Why  not  un- 
limber  all  the  Gospel  batteries  and  let  them  boom 
across  the  earth  and  boom  into  the  parting  heavens. 
The  King  is  ready  to  land  if  we  are  ready  to  receive  Him. 
Why  can  not  we  who  are  now  living  see  His  descent? 
Must  it  all  be  postponed  to  later  ages?  Has  not  our  poor 
world  groaned  long  enough  in  mortal  agonies?  Have 
there  not  been  martyrs  enough,  and  have  not  the  lakes 
of  tears  and  the  rivers  of  blood  been  deep  enough? 
oh,  christ!  why  tarriest  thou? 
Why  cannot  the  final  glory  roll  in  now?  Why  can  not 
this  dying  century  feel  the  incoming  tides  of  the  oceans 
of  heavenly  mercy?  Must  our  eyes  close  in  death  and 
our  ears  take  on  the  deafness  of  the  tomb,  and  there 
hearts  beat  their  last  throb  before  the  day  comes  in?  Oh, 
Christ!  Why  tarriest  Thou?  Wilt  Thou  not,  before  we 
go  the  way  of  all  the  earth,  let  us  see  Thy  scarred  feet 
under  some  noonday  cloud  coming  this  way?  Before  we 
die  let  us  behold  Thy  hands  that  were  spiked,  spread  out 
in  benediction  for  a  lost  race.  And  why  not  let  us,  with 
our  mortal  ears,  hear  that  voice  which  spoke  peace  as 
Thou  didst  go  up,  speak  pardon  and  emancipation,  and 
love  and  holiness  and  joy  to  all  Nations  as  Thou  comest 
down?  But  the  skies  do  not  part.  I  hear  no  rumbling 
of  chariot  wheels  coming  down  over  the  sapphire.  There 
is  no  swoop  of  wings.  I  see  no  flash  of  angelic  appear- 
ances. All  is  still.  I  hear  nothing  but  the  tramp  of  my 
own  heart  as  I  pause  between  these  utterances.  The 
King  does  not  land  because  the  world  is  not  ready,  and 
the  church  is  not  ready.      To  clear  the  way  for  the  Lord '.a 


THE  BATTLE  OF  CREEDS.  223 

coming  let  us  devote  all  our  energies  of  body,  mind  and 
soul.  A  Russian  General  riding  over  the  battlefield;  his 
horse  treading  amid  the  dying  and  dead,  a  wounded  sol- 
dier asked  him  for  water,  but  the  officer  did  not  under- 
stand his  language  and  knew  not  what  the  poor  fellow 
wanted.  Then  the  soldier  cried  out,  "Christos,"  and 
that  word  meant  sympathy  and  help,  and  the  Russian 
officer  dismounted  and  put  to  the  lips  of  the  sufferer  a 
cooling  draught. 

THE     CHARMED    WORD. 

Be  that  the  charmed  word  with  whicn  we  go  forth  to 
do  our  whold  duty.  In  many  languages  it  has  only  a 
little  difference  of  termination.  Christos!  It  stands  for 
sympathy.  It  stands  for  help.  It  stands  for  pardon.  It 
stands  for  hope.  It  stands  for  heaven.  Christos!  In 
that  name  we  were  baptized.  In  that  name  we  took 
our  first  sacrament.  That  will  be  the  battle-shout  that 
will  win  the  whole  world  for  God.  Christos!  Put  it  on 
our  banners  when  we  march!  Put  it  on  our  lips  when  we 
die!  Put  it  in  the  funeral  psalms  at  our  obsequies!  Put 
it  on  the  plain  slab  over  our  grave!  Christos!  Blessed 
be  His  glorions  name  forever!     Amen! 


THE  HAUNTS  OF  VICE  IN  THE  CITIES, 

AS  SEEN  BY  DR.    TALMAGE  AND  COMPANIONS  DURING  A 
VISIT    TO  THESE  PLACES. 


"When  said  he  unto  me,  Son  of  man,  dig  now  in  the  wall;  and  when  I 
had  digged  in  the  wall,  behold  a  door.  And  he  said  unto  me,  Go  in  and 
behold  the  wicked  abominations  that  they  do  here.  So  I  went  in  and 
saw;  and  behold  every  form  of  creeping  things  and  abominable  beasts." — 
Ezekiel,  viii:  8,  9,  10. 

p  o  this  minister  of  religion,  Ezekiel,  was  command- 
ed to  the  exploration  of  the  sin  of  his  day.  He 
was  not  to  stand  out  side  the  door  guessing  what 
it  was,  but  was  to  go  in  and  see  for  himself.  He  did  not 
in  vision  say:  "O  Lord,  I  don't  want  to  go  in;  I  dare  not 
go  in;  if  I  go  in  I  might  be  criticised;  O  Lord,  please  let 
me  off?"  When  God  told  Ezekiel  to  go  in,  he  went  in, 
"and  saw,  and  behold  all  manner  of  creeping  things  and 
abominable  beasts." 

I,  as  a  minister  of  religion,  felt  I  had  a  Divine  com- 
mission to  explore  the  ini  pities  of  our  cities.  I  did  not 
ask  counsel  of  my  session,  or  my  Presbytery,  or  of  the 
newspapers,  but  asking  the  companionship  of  three 
prominent  police  officials  and  two  of  the  elders  of  my 
church,  I  unrolled  my  commission,  and  it  said;  "Son  of 
man,  dig  into  the  wall;  and  when  I  had  digged  into  the 
wall,  behold  a  door;  and  he  said,  Go  in  and  see  the 
wicked  abominations  that  are  done  here;  and  I  went  in, 
and  saw,  and  behold!"       Brought  up  in  the  country  and 

[224] 


I  ft  /        •'// 


THE    HAUNTS    OF  VICE.  225 

surrounded  by  much  parental  care,  I  had  not  until  this 
autumn  seen  the  haunts  of  iniquity.  By  the  grace  of 
God  defended,  I  had  never  sowed  any  "wild  oats."  I 
had  somehow  been  able  to  tell  from  various  sources 
something  about  the  iniquities  of  the  great  cities,  and  to 
preach  against  them;  but  I  saw,  in  the  destruction  of  a 
great  multitude  of  the  people,  that  there  must  be  an  in- 
fatuation and  a  temptation  that  had  never  been  spoken 
about,  and  I  said,  "I  will  explore."  I  saw  tens  of 
thousands  of  men  going  down,  and  if  there  had  been  a 
spiritual  percussion  answering  to  the  physical  percussion, 
the  whole  air  would  have  been  full  of  the  rumble,  and 
roar,  and  crack,  and  thunder  of  the  demolition,  and  this 
moment,  if  we  should  pause  in  our  service,  we  should 
hear  the  crash,  crash!  Just  as  in  the  sickly  season  you 
sometimes  hear  the  bell  at  the  gate  of  the  cemetery  ring- 
ing almost  incessantly,  so  I  found  that  the  bell  at  the 
gate  of  the  cemetery  where  lost  souls  are  buried  was  toll- 
ling  by  day  and  tolling  by  night. 

I  said,  "I  will  explore."  1  went  as  a  physician  goes 
into  a  small-pox  hospital,  or  a  fever  lazzaretto,  to  see 
what  practical  and  useful  information  I  might  get.  That 
would  be  a  foolish  doctor  who  would  stand  outside  the 
door  of  an  invalid  writing  a  Latin  prescription.  When 
the  lecturer  in  a  medical  college  is  done  with  his  lecture 
he  takes  the  students  into  the  dissecting  room,  and  he 
shows  them  the  reality.  I  am  here  this  morning  to  re- 
port a  plague,  and  to  tell  you  how  sin  dissects  the  body, 
and  dissects  the  mind,  and  dissects  the  soul. 

,  'Oh!"  say  you,  "are  you  not  afraid  that  in  conse- 
quence   of  your    exploration  of   the  inquities    of  the  city 


226  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES. 

other  persons  may  make   exploration,  and  do  themselves 
damage?" 

CRITICISMS. 

I  reply;  "If,  in  company  with  the  Commissioner  of 
Police,  and  the  Captain  of  Police,  and  the  Inspector  of 
Police,  and  the  company  of  two  Christian  gentlemen, 
and  not  with  the  spirit  of  curiosity,  but  that  you  may  see 
sin  in  order  the  better  to  combat  it,  then,  in  the  name  of 
the  eternal  God,    go?       But,    if    not,    then    stay    away. 

Wellington,  standing  in  the  battle  of  Waterloo  when 
the  bullets  were  buzzing  around  his  head,  saw  a  civilian 
on  the  field.  He  said  to  him,  "Sir,  what  are  you  doing 
here?     Be  off!" 

<4Why,"  replied  the  civilian,  "there  is  no  more  danger 
here  for  me  than  there  is  for  you." 

Then  Wellington  flushed  up  and  said,  "God  and  my 
country  demand  that  I  be  here,  but  you  have  no  errand 
here." 

Now  I,  as  an  officer  in  the  army  of  Jesus  Christ,  went 
on  this  exploration,  and  on  to  this  battle-field.  If  you 
bear  alike  commission,  go;  if  not,  stay  away. 

But  you  say,  "Don't  you  think  that  somehow  your 
description  of  these  places  will  induce  people  to  go  and 
see  for  themselves?" 

I  answer,  yes,  just  as  much  as  the  description  of  the 
yellow  fever  at  Grenada  would  induce  people  to  go  down 
there  and  get  the  pestilence.  It  was  told  us  there  were 
hardly  enough  people  alive  to  bury  the  dead,  and  I  am 
going  to  tell  you  a  story  in  these  Sabbath  morning  ser- 
mons of  places  where  they  are  all  dead  or  dying.  And  1 
shall  not  gild  iniquities.       I  shall  play  a  dirge  and  not  an 


THE  HAUNTS    OF  VICE.  227 

anthem,  and  while  I  shall  not  put  faintest  blush  on 
fairest  cheek,  I  will  kindle  the  cheeks  of  many  a  man 
into  conflagration,  and  I  will  make  his  ears  tingle.  But 
you  say,  "Don't  you  know  that  the  papers  are  criticis- 
ing you  for  the  position  you  take?"  I  say,  yes;  and  do 
you  know  how  I  feel  about  it!  There  is  no  man  who  is 
more  indebted  to  the  newspaper  press  than  I  am.  My 
business  is  to  preach  the  truth,  and  the  wider  the  audience 
the  newspaper  press  gives  me,  the  wider  my  field  is.  As 
the  secular  and  religious  press  of  the  United  States  and 
the  Canadas,  and  of  England  and  Ireland  and  Scotland 
and  Australia  and  New  Zealand,  are  giving  me  every 
week  nearly  three  million  souls  for  an  audience,  I  say  I 
am  indebted  to  the  press  anyhow.  Go  on!  To  the  day 
of  my  death  I  cannot  pay  them  what  I  owe  them.  So 
slash  away,  gentlemen.  The  more  the  merrier.  If  there 
is  anything  I  despise,  it  is  a  dull  time.  Brisk  criticism 
is  a  course  Turkish  towel,  with  which  every  public  man 
needs  every  day  to  be  rubbed  down,  in  order  to  keep 
healthful  circulation.  Give  my  love  to  all  the  secular 
and  religious  editors,  and  full  permission  to  run  their 
steel  pens  clear  through  my  sermons,  from  introduction 
to  application. 

dante's  inferno. 
It  was  ten  o'clock  cf  a  calm,  clear,  star-lighted  night 
when  the  carriage  rolled  with  us  from  the  bright  part  of 
the  city  down  into  the  region  where  gambling  and  crime 
and  death  hold  high  carnival.  When  I  speak  of  houses 
of  dissipation,  I  do  not  refer  to  one  sin,  or  five  sins,  but 
to  all  sins.  As  the  horses  halted,  and,  escorted  by  the 
officers,  of  the  law,  we  went  in,  we  moved  into  a  world  of 


228  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

which  we  were  as  practically  ignorant  as  though  it  had 
swung  as  far  off  from  us  as  Mercury  is  from  Saturn.  No 
shout  of  revelry,  no  guffaw  of  laughter,  but  comparative 
silence.  Not  many  signs  of  death,  but  the  dead  was 
there.  As  I  moved  through  this  place  I  said,  "This  is 
the  home  of  lost  souls."  It  was  a  Dante's  Inferno; 
nothing  to  stir  the  mirth,  but  many  things  to  fill  the  eyes 
with  tears  of  pit}.  Ah!  there  were  moral  corpses.  There 
were  corpses  on  the  stairway,  corpses  in  the  gallery, 
corpses  in  the  gardens.  Leper  met  leper,  but  no  ban- 
daged mouth  kept  back  the  breath.  I  felt  that  I  was 
sitting  on  the  iron  coast  against  which  Euroclydon  had 
driven  a  hundred  dismasted  hulks — every  moment  more 
blackening  hulks  rolling  in.  And  while  I  stood  and 
waited  for  the  going  down  of  the  storm  and  the  lull  of  the 
sea,  I  bethought  myself,  this  is  an  everlasting  storm,  and 
these  billows  always  rage,  and  on  each  carcass  that 
strewed  the  beach  already  had  alighted  a  vulture — the 
long-beaked,  fifthy  vulture  of  unending  despair — now 
picking  into  the  corruption,  and  now  on  the  black  wing 
wiping  the  blood  off  a  soul!  No  lark,  no  robin,  no  chaf- 
finch, but  vultures,  vultures,  vultures. 

BITTEN  BY    A    SERPENT. 

I  was  reading  of  an  incident  that  occurred  in  Pennsyl- 
vania a  few  weeks  ago,  where  a  naturalist  had  presented 
to  him  a  deadly  serpent,  and  he  put  it  in  a  bottle  and 
stood  it  in  his  studio,  and  one  evening,  while  in  the 
studio  with  his  daughter,  a  bat  flew  in  the  window,  ex- 
tinguished the  light,  struck  the  bottle  containing  the 
deadly  serpent,  and  in  a  few  minutes  there  was  a  shriek 
from    the   daughter,    and  in  a  few  hours    she  was  dead. 


THE    HAUNTS  OF    VICE.  22Q 

She  had  been  bitten  of  the  serpent.  Amid  these  haunts 
of  death,  in  that  midnight  exploration  I  saw  that  there 
were  lions  and  eagles  and  doves  for  insignia;  but  thought 
to  myself  how  inappropriate.  Better  the  insignia  of  an 
adder  and  a -bat. 

WHAT  I  SAW  IN  THE  COSTLIEST  HAUNT  OF  VICE. 

First  of  all,  I  have  to  report  as  a  result  of  this  mid- 
night exploration  that  all  the  sacred  rhetoric  about  the 
costly  magnificence  of  the  haunts  of  iniquity  is  apocry- 
phal. We  were  shown  what  was  called  the  costliest  and 
most  magnificient  specimen.  I  had  often  heard  that 
the  walls  were  adorned  with  masterpieces;  that  the  foun- 
tains were  bewitching  in  the  gaslight;  that  the  music  was 
like  the  touch  of  Thalberg  or  a  Gottschalk;  that  the  up- 
holstery was  imperial;  that  the  furniture  in  some  places 
was  like  the  ihrone-room  of  the  Tuilleries.  It  is  all 
false.  Masterpieces!  There  was  not  a  painting  worth 
five  dollars,  leaving  aside  the  frame.  Great  daubs  of 
color  that  no  intelligent  mechanic  would  put  on  his  wall. 
A  cross-breed  between  a  chromo  and  a  splash  of  poor 
paint!  Music!  Some  of  the  homliest  creatures  I  ever  saw 
squawked  discord,  accompanied  by  pianos  out  of  tune! 
Upholstery!  Two  characteristics;  red  and  cheap.  You 
have  heard  so  much  about  the  wonderful  lights — blue 
and  green  and  yellow  and  orange  flashing  across  the 
dancers  and  the  gay  groups.  Seventy-five  cents'  worth 
of  chemicals  would  produce  all  that  in  one  night.  Tinsel 
gewgaws,  tawdriness,  frippery,  seemingly  much  of  it 
bought  at  a  second-hand  furniture  store  and  never  paid 
for!  For  the  most  part,  the  inhabitants  were  repulsive. 
Here  and  there  a  soul  on    whom  God  had  put  the  crown 


23O  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

of  beauty,  but  nothing  comparable  with  the  Christian 
lovliness  and  purity  which  you  may  see  any  pleasant 
afternoon  on  any  of  the  thoroughfares  of  our  great  cities. 
Young  man,  you  are  a  stark  fool  if  you  go  to  places  of 
dissipation  to  see  pictures,  and  hear  music,  and  admire 
beautiful  and  gracious  countenances.  From  Thomas's, 
or  Dodworth's,  or  Gilmore's  Band,  in  ten  minutes  you 
will  hear  more  harmony  than  in  a  whole  year  of  the 
racket  and  bang  of  the  cheap  orchestras  of  the  dissolute. 
Come  to  me,  and  I  will  give  you  a  letter  of  introduction 
to  any  one  of  five  hundred  homes  in  Brooklyn  and  New 
York,  where  you  will  see  finer  pictures  and  hear  more 
beautiful  music — music  and  pictures  compared  with 
which  there  is  nothing  worth  speaking  of  in  houses  of 
dissipation.  Sin,  however  pretentious,  is  almost  always 
poor.  Mirrors,  divans,  Chickering  grand  she  cannot 
keep.  The  sheriff  is  after  it  with  uplifted  mallet,  ready 
for  the  vendue.      "Going!  going!  gone! 

INFERIOR  MUSIC     AND  GOOD  MUSIC. 

But,  my  friends,  I  noticed  in  all  the  haunts  of  dissi- 
pation that  there  was  an  attempt  at  music,  however  poor. 
The  door  swung  open  and  shut  to  music;  they  stepped  to 
music;  they  danced  to  music;  they  attempted  nothing 
without  music,  and  I  said  to  myself,  "If  such  inferior 
music  has  such  power,  and  drum,  and  fife,  and  orchestra 
are  enlisted  in  the  service  of  the  devil,  what  multipotent 
power  there  must  be  in  music!  and  is  it  not  high  time 
that  in  all  our  churches  and  reform  associations  we  tested 
how  much  charm  there  is  in  it  to  bring  men  off  the 
wrong  road  to  the  right  road?"  Fifty  times  that  night 
i  said  within  myself,     "If  poor  music  is  so  powerful  in  a 


THE    HAUNTS  OF  VICE.  23 1 

bad  direction,  why  cannot  good  music  be  almost  omni- 
potent in  a  good  direction?"  Oh!  my  friends,  we  want 
to  drive  men  into  the  kingdom  of  God  with  a  musical 
staff.  We  want  to  shut  off  the  path  of  death  with  a 
musical  bar.  We  want  to  snatch  all  the  musical  instru- 
ments from  the  service  of  the  devil,  and  with  organ,  and 
cornet,  and  base  viol,  and  piano  and  orchestra  praise  the 
Lord. 

Good  Richard  Cecil  when  seated  in  the  pulpit,  said 
that  when  Doctor  Wargan  was  at  the  organ,  he,  Mr. 
Cecil,  was  so  overpowered  with  the  music  that  he  found 
himself  looking  for  the  first  chapter  of  Isaiah  in 
the  prayer  book,  wondering  he  could  not  find  it.  Oh! 
holy  bewilderment.  Let  us  send  such  men  as  Phillip 
Phillips,  the  Christian  vocalist,  all  around  the  world, 
andArbuckle,  the  cornetist,  with  his  "Robin  Adair"  set  to 
Christian  melody,  and  George  Morgan  with  his  Hallelu- 
jah Chorus,  and  ten  thousand  Christian  men  with  up- 
lifted hosannas  to  capture  this  whole  earth  for  God.  Oh! 
my  friends,  we  have  had  enough  minor  strains  in  the 
church;  give  us  major  strains.  We  have  had  enough 
dead  marches  in  the  church;  play  us  those  tunes  which 
are  played  when  an  army  is  on  a  dead  run  to  overtake  an 
enemy.  Give  us  the  double-quick.  We  are  in  full 
gallop  of  cavalry  charge.  Forward,  the  whole  line! 
Many  a  man  who  is  unmoved  by  Chistian  argument 
surrenders  to  a  Christian  song. 

THE  CONVERTED  DRUNKARD. 

Many  a  man  under  the  power  of  Christian  music  has 
had  a  change  take  place  in  his  soul  and  in  his  life  equal 
to  that  which  took  place  in  the  life  of  a  man  in  Scotland, 


2  32  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

who  for  fifteen  years  had  been  a  drunkard.  Coming 
home  late  at  night,  as  he  touched  the  doorsill,  his  wife 
trembled  at  his  coming.  Telling  the  story  afterv/ard, 
she  said: 

"I  didn't  dare  go  to  bed  lest  he  violently  drag  me 
forth.  When  he  came  home  there  was  only  about  one 
half  inch  of  the  candle  left  in  the  socket.  When  he 
entered,  he  said: 

"Where  are  the  children?" 

I  said,   "They  are  up  stairs  in  bed." 

He  said'    "Go  and  fetch  them." 

I  went  up  and  I  knelt  down  and  I  prayed  God  to  de- 
fend me  and  my  children  from  their  cruel  father.  And 
then  I  brought  them  down.  He  took  up  the  eldest  in 
his  arms  and  kissed  her  and  said, 

"My  dear  lass,  the  Lord  hath  sent  thee  a  father  home 
to-night."  And  so  he  did  with  the  second,  and  then  he 
took  up  the  third  of  the  children  and  said,  'My  dear  boy, 
the  Lord  hath  sent  thee  home  a  father  to-night.'  And 
then  he  took  up  the  babe  and  said,  'My  darling  babe, 
the  Lord  hath  sent  thee  home  a  father  to-night.'  And 
then  he  put  his  arms  around  me  and  kissed  me,  and  said, 
'My  dear  lass,  the  Lord  hath  sent  thee  home  a  husband 
to-night.'  Why,  sir'  I  had  na'  heard  anything  like  that 
for  fourteen  years.  And  he  prayed  and  he  was  comfort- 
ed, and  my  soul  was  restored,  for  I  didn't  live  as  I  ought 
to  have  lived,  close  to  God.  My  trouble  had  broken  me 
down."  Oh!  for  such  a  transformation  in  some  of  the 
homes  of  Brooklyn  to-day.  By  holy  conspiracy,  in  the 
last  song  of  the  morning,  let  us  sweep  every  prodigal  in- 
to the  kingdom    of  our  God.        Oh!    ye    chanters    above 


THE  HAUNTS  OF    VICE.  233 

Bethlehem,  come  and    hover  this   morning  and  give  us  a 
snatch  of  the  old  tune  about  "good  will  to  men." 

SOMETHING  THAT  AMAZED  ME. 

But  I  have,  also  to  report  of  that  midnight  exploration, 
that  I  saw  something  that  amazed  me  more  than  I  can 
tell.  I  do  not  want  to  tell  it,  for  it  will  take  pain  to 
many  hearts  far  away,  and  I  cannot  comfort  them.  But 
I  must  tell  it. 

In  all  these  haunts  of  iniquity  I  found  young  men  with 
the  ruddy  color  of  country  health  on  their  cheek,  evi- 
dently just  come  to  town  for  business,  entering  stores, 
and  shops,  and  offices.  They  had  helped  gather  the 
summer  grain.  There  they  were  in  haunts  of  iniquity, 
the  look  on  their  cheek  which  is  never  on  the  cheek  ex- 
cept when  there  has  been  hard  work  on  the  farm  and  in 
the  open  air.  Here  were  these  young  men  who  had 
heard  how  gayly  a  boat  dances  on  the  edge  of  a  maelstrom, 
and  they  were  venturing.  O  God!  will  a  few  weeks  do 
such  on  awful  work  for  a  young  man?  O  Lord!  hast 
thou  forgotten  what  transpired  when  they  knelt  at  the 
family  altar  that  morning  when  he  came  away,  and  how 
father's  voice  trembled  in  the  prayer,  and  mother  and 
sister  sobbed  as  they  lay  on  the  floor? 

THE  YOUNG  MAN'S    FIRST  NIGHT  THERE. 

I  saw  that  young  man  when  he  first  confronted  evil. 
I  saw  it  was  the  first  night  there.  I  saw  on  him  a  de- 
fiant look,  as  much  as  to  say,  "I  am  mightier  than 
sin. "  Then  I  saw  him  consult  with  iniquity.  Then  I 
saw  him  waver  and  doubt.  Then  I  saw  going  over  his 
countenance  the  shadow  of  sad  reflections,  and  I  knew 
from  his  looks  there  was  a  powerful    memory  stirring-  his 


2  34  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

soul.  I  think  there  was  a  whisper  going  out  from  the 
gaudy  upholstery,  saying,  "My  son,  go  home."  I  think 
there  was  a  hand  stretched  out  from  under  the  curtains 
— 3  hand  tremulous  with  anxiety,  a  hand  that  has  been 
worn  with  work,  a  hand  partly  wrinkled  with  age,  that 
seemed  to  beckon  him  away,  and  so  goodness  and  sin 
seemed  to  struggle  in  that  young  man's  soul;  but  sin 
triumphed,  and  he  surrendered  to  darkness  and  to  death 
— an  ox  to  the  slaughter.  Oh!  my  soul,  is  this  the  end 
of  all  the  good  advice?  Is  this  the  end  of  all  the  prayers 
that  have  been  made?  Have  the  clusters  of  the  country 
vineyard  been  thrown  into  this  great  wine-press  where 
Despair  and  Anguish  and  Death  trample,  and  the  vintage 
is  a  vintage  of  blood?  I  do  not  feel  so  sorry  for  that 
young  man  who,  brought  up  in  city  life,  knows  before- 
hand what  are  all  the  surrounding  temptations;  but  God 
pity  the  country  lad  unsuspecting  and  easily  betrayed. 
Oh?  young  man  from  the  farmhouse  among  the  hills, 
what  have  your  parents  done  that  you  should  do  this 
against  them?  Why  are  you  bent  on  killing  with  trouble 
her  who  gave  you  birth?  Look  at  her  fingers — what 
makes  them  so  distort?  Working  for  you.  Do  you  pre- 
fer to  that  honest  old  face  the  berouged  cheek  of  sin? 
Write  home  to-morrow  morning  by  the  first  mail,  cursing 
your  mother's  white  hair,  cursing  her  stooped  shoulder, 
cursing  her  old  arm-chair,  cursing  the  cradle  in  which 
she  rocked  you.  "Oh!"  you  say,  "I  can't,  I  can't."  You 
are  doing  it  already. 

THE  BLOOD  OF  A    MOTHER'S  BROKEN  HEART. 

There  is  something    on  your  hands,  on  your  forehead, 
on  your  feet.        It  is  red.        What  is  it?     The  blood  of  a 


THE  HAUNTS    OF    VICE.  235 

mother's  broken  heart!  When  you  were  threshing  the 
harvest  apples  from  that  tree  at  the  corner  of  the  field 
last  summer,  did  you  think  you  would  ever  come  to  this? 
Did  you  think  that  the  sharp  sickle  of  death  would  cut 
you  down  so  soon?  If  I  thought  I  could  break  the  in- 
fatuation I  would  come  down  from  the  pulpit  and  throw 
my  arms  around  you  and  beg  you  to  stop.  Perhaps  I 
am  a  little  more  sympathetic  with  such  because  I  was  a 
country  lad.  It  was  not  until  fifteen  years  of  age  that  I 
saw  a  great  city.  I  remember  how  stupendous  New 
York  looked  as  I  arrived  at  Cortlandt  Ferry.  And  now 
that  I  look  back  and  remember  that  I  had  a  nature  all 
awake  to  hilarities  and  amusements,  it  is  a  wonder  I 
escaped.  I  was  saying  this  to  a  gentleman  in  New  York 
a  few  days  ago,  and  he  said,  "Ah!  sir,  I  guess  there  were 
some  prayers  hovering  about."  When  I  see  a  young 
man  coming  from  the  tame  life  of  the  country  and  going 
down  in  the  city  ruin,  I  am  not  surprised.  My  only 
surprise  is  that  any  escape,  considering  the  allurements. 
I  was  a  few  days  ago  on  the  St.  Lawrence  river,  and 
I  said  to  the  captain,  "What  a  swift  stream  this  is.' 
"Oh!"  he  replied,  "seventy-five  miles  from  here  it  is  ten' 
times  swifter.  Why,  we  have  to  employ  an  Indian  pilot, 
and  we  give  him  $1,000  for  his  summer's  work,  just  to 
conduct  our  boats  through  between  the  rocks  and  the  is- 
lands, so  swift  are  the  rapids."  Well,  my  friends,  every 
man  that  comes  into  New  York  and  Brooklyn  life  comes 
into  the  rapids,  and  the  only  question  is  whether  he  shall 
have  safe  or  unsafe  pilotage.  Young  man  your  bad 
habits  will  be  reported  at  the  homestead.  You  cannot 
bide  them. 


236  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

There  are  people  who  love  to  carry  bad  news,  and 
there  will  be  some  accursed  old  gossip  who  will  wend  her 
infernal  step  toward  the  old  homestead,  and  she  will  sit 
down,  and  after  she  has  awhile  wriggled  in  the  chair, 
she  will  say  to  your  old  parents,  "Do  you  know  your 
son  drinks?" 

YOU  KILLED    HER. 

Then  your  dear  parents  will  get  white  about  the 
lips,  and  the  mother  will  ask  to  have  the  door  set  a  little 
open  for  the  fresh  air,  and  before  that  old  gossip  leaves 
the  place  she  will  have  told  your  parents  all  about  the 
places  where  you  are  accustomed  to  go.  Then  your 
mother  will  come  out,  and  she  will  sit  down  on  the  steps 
where  you  used  to  play,  and  she  will  cry  and  cry.  Then 
she  will  be  sick,  and  the  gig  of  the  country  doctor  will 
come  up  the  country  lane,  and  the  horse  will  be  tied  at 
the  swing-gate,  and  the  prescription  will  fail,  and  she 
will  get  worse  and  worse,  and  in  her  delirium  she  will 
talk  about  nothing  but  you.  Then  the  farmers  will  come 
to  the  funeral,  and  tie  the  horses  at  the  rail  fence  about 
the  house,  and  they  will  talk  about  what  ailed  the  one  that 
died,  and  one  will  say  it  was  intermitten,  and  the  other 
will  say  it  was  congestion;  and  another  will  say  it  was 
premature  old  age;  but  it  will  be  neither  intermitten,  nor 
congestion,  nor  old  age.  In  the  ponderous  book  of  Al- 
mighty God  it  will  be  recorded  for  everlasting  ages  to 
read,  that  you  killed  her.  Our  language  is  very  fertile  in 
describing  different  kinds  of  crime.  Slaying  a  man  is 
homicide.  Slaying  a  brother  is  fratricide.  Slaying  a 
father  is  patricide.        Slaying  a  mother  is  matricide       It 


THE  HAUNTS    OF  VICE.  237 

takes  two  words  to  describe  your  crime — patricide  and 
matricide. 

I  must  leave  to  other  Sabbath  mornings  the  unrolling 
of  the  scroll  which  I  have  this  morning  only  laid  on  your 
table.  We  have  come  only  to  the  vestibule  of  the  sub- 
ject. I  have  been  treating  of  generals.  I  shall  come  to 
specifics.  I  have  not  told  you  of  all  the  styles  of  people 
I  saw  in  the  haunts  of  iniquity.  Before  I  get  through 
with  these  sermons  and  next  Sabbath  morning  I  will 
answer  the  question  everywhere  asked  me,  why  does 
municipal  authority  allow  these  haunts  of  iniquity? 

I  will  show  all  the  obstacles  in  the  way.  Sirs,  before 
I  get  through  with  this  course  of  Sabbath  morning  ser- 
mons, by  the  help  of  the  eternal  God,  I  will  save  ten 
thousand  men!  And  in  the  execution  of  this  mission  I 
defy  all  earth  and  hell. 

A  THRILLING  INCIDENT. 

But  I  was  going  to  tell  you  of  an  incident.  I  said  to 
the  officer,  ''Well,  let  us  go;  I  am  tired  of  this  scene;'' 
and  as  we  passed  out  of  the  haunts  of  iniquity  into  the 
fresh  air,  a  soul  passed  in.  What  a  face  that  was!  Sor- 
row only  half  covered  up  with  an  assumed  joy.  It  was 
a  woman's  face.  I  saw  as  plainly  as  on  the  page  of  a 
book  the  tragedy.  You  know  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  somnambulism,  or  walking  in  one's  sleep.  Well,  in 
a  fatal  sonambulism,  a  soul  started  off  from  her  father's 
house.  It  was  very  dark,  and  her  feet  were  cut  of  the 
rocks;  but  on  she  went  until  she  came  to  the  verge  of  a 
chasm,  and  she  began  to  descend  from  bowlder  to  bowl- 
der down  over  the  rattling  shelving — for  you  know  while 
walking  in  sleep  people  will  go  where  they  would  not   go 


238  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

when  awake.  Further  on  down,  and  further,  where  no 
owl  of  the  night  or  hawk  of  the  day  would  venture.  On 
down  until  she  touched  the  depth  of  the  chasm.  Then, 
in  walking  sleep,  she  began  to  ascend  the  other  side  of 
the  chasm,  rock  above  rock,  as  the  roe  boundeth.  With- 
out having  her  head  to  swim  with  the  awful  steep,  she 
scaled  the  height.  No  eye  but  the  sleepless  eye  of  God 
watched  her  as  she  went  down  one  side  the  chasm  and 
came  up  the  other  side  the  chasm. 

FATAL  AWAKENING  OF  THE  SOMNAMBULIST. 

It  was  an  August  night,  and  a  storm  was  gathering, 
and  a  loud  burst  of  thunder  awoke  her  from  her  somnam- 
bulism, and  she  said,  ''Whither  shall  I  fly?"  and  with  an 
affrighted  eye  she  looked  back  upon  the  chasm  she  had 
crossed,  and  she  looked  in  front,  and  there  was  a  deeper 
chasm  before  her.  She  said,  -'What  shall  I  do?  Must 
I  die  here?"  And  as  she  bent  over  the  one  chasm,  she 
heard  the  sighing  of  the  past;  and  as  she  bent  over  the 
other  chasm,  she  heard  the  portents  of  the  future.  Then 
she  sat  down  on  the  granite  crag,  and  cried:  "O!  for  my 
father's  house!  O!  for  the  cottage,  where  I  might  die 
amid  embowering  honeysuckle!  O!  the  past!  O!  the 
future!  O!  father!  O!  mother!  O!  God!"  But  the  storm 
that  had  been  gathering  culminated,  and  wrote  with 
finger  of  litghtning  on  the  sky  just  above  the  horizon, 
'  'The  way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard. "  And  then  thunder- 
peal after  thunder-peal  uttered  it:  "Which  forsaketh  the 
guide  of  her  youth  and  forgetteth  the  covenant  of  her 
God.  Destroyed  without  remedy!"  And  the  cavern  be- 
hind echoed  it,  "Destroyed  without  remedy!"  And  the 
chasm  before  echoed    it,    "Destroyed    without    remedy!" 


THE  HAUNTS  OF     VICE. 


239 


There  she  perished,  her  cut  and  bleeding  feet  on  the 
edge  of  one  chasm,  her  long,  locks  washed  of  the  storm 
dripping  over  the  other  chasm. 

And  by  this  time  the  carriage  had  reached  the  curb- 
stone of  my  dwelling,  and  I  awoke  and  behold  it  was  ? 
dream. 


THE  LEPERS  OF  HIGH  LIFE. 


"Policeman,  what  of  the  night?" — Isaiah,  xxi,  n. 

he    original  of  the  text   may  be  translated   either 
watchman"  or  "policeman."     I  have  chosen  the 

latter  word.      The  olden-time  cities  were  all  thus 
guarded. 

There  were  roughs,  and  thugs,  and  desperadoes  in 
Jerusalem,  as  well  as  there  are  in  New  York  and  Brook- 
lyn. The  police  headquarters  of  olden  time  was  on  top 
of  the  city  wall.  King  Solomon,  walking  incognito 
through  the  streets,  reports  in  one  of  his  songs  that  he 
met  these  officials.  King  Solomon  must  have  had  a 
large  posse  of  police  to  look  after  his  royal  grounds,  for 
he  had  twelve  thousand  blooded  horses  in  his  stables,  and 
he  had  millions  of  dollars  in  his  palace,  and  he  had  six 
hundred  wives,  and,  though  the  palace  was  large,  no 
house  was  ever  large  enough  to  hold  two  women  married 
to  the  same  man;  much  less  could  six  hundred  keep  the 
peace.  Well,  the  eight  was  divided  into  three  watches, 
the  first  watch  reaching  from  sundown  to  ten  o'clock;  the 
second  watch  from  ten  o'clock  to  two  in  the  morning;  the 
third  watch  from  two  in  the  morning  to  sunrise.  An  Idu- 
mean,  anxious  about  the  prosperity  of  the  city,  and  in 
regard  to  any  danger  that  might  threaten  it,  accosts  an 
officer  just  as  you  might  any  night  upon  our  streets,  say- 
ing, "Policeman,  what  of  the  night?"  Policemen,  more 
than  any  other  people,    understand  a  city.        Upon  them 

(240) 


THE  LEPERS    OF  HIGH  LIFE.  24I 

are  vast  responsibilities  for  small  pay.  The  police  officer 
of  your  city  gets  $i,  ioo  salary,  but  he  may  spend  only 
one  night  of  an  entire  month  in  his  family.  The  detect- 
ive of  your  city  gets  $i,  500  salary,  but  from  January  to 
January  there  is  not  an  hour  that  he  may  call  his  own. 
Amid  cold  and  heat  and  tempest,  and  amid  the  perils  of 
the  bludgeon  of  the  midnight  assassin,  he  does  his  work. 
The  moon  looks  down  upon  nine-tenths  of  the  iniquity 
of  our  great  cities.  What  wonder,  then,  that  a  few 
weeks  ago,  in  the  interest  of  morality  and  religion,  I 
asked  the  question  of  the  text,  ''Policeman,  what  of  the 
night?" 

GOOD  ADVICE    TO  THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARIES. 

In  addition  to  this  powerful  escortage,  I  asked  two 
elders  of  the  church  to  accompany  me;  not  because  they 
were  any  better  than  the  other  elders  of  the  church,  but 
because  they  were  more  muscular,  and  I  was  resolved 
that  in  any  case  where  anything  more  than  spiritual  de- 
fense was  necessary,  to  refer  the  whole  matter  to  their 
hands!  I  believe  in  muscular  Christianity.  I  wish  that 
our  theological  seminaries,  instead  of  sending  out  so 
many  men  with  dyspepsia  and  liver  complaint  and  all 
out  of  breath  by  the  time  they  have  climbed  to  the  top 
of  the  pulpit  stairs,  would,  through  gymnasiums  and 
other  means,  send  into  the  pulpit  physical  giants  as  well 
as  spiritual  athletes.  I  do  wish  I  could  consecrate  to 
the  Lord  two  hundred  and  fifty  pound  avoirdupois  weight? 
But)  borrowing  the  strength  of  others,  I  started  out  on 
the  midnight  exploration.  I  was  preceded  in  this  work 
by  Thomas  Chalmers,  who  opened  every  door  of  iniquity 
in    Edinburgh  before  he  established  systematic  ameliora- 


242  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

tion,  and  preceded  by  Thomas  Guthrie,  who  explored  all 
the  squalor  of  the  city  before  he  established  the  ragged 
schools,  and  by  every  man  who  has  done  anything  to 
balk  crime,  and  help  the  tempted  and  the  destroyed. 
Above  all,  I  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Him  who  was  de- 
rided by  the  hypocrites  and  the  sanhedrims  of  the  day, 
because  he  persisted  in  exploring  the  deepest  moral  slush 
of  his  time,  going  down  among  demoniacs  and  paupers 
and  adulteresses,  never  so  happy  as  when  he  had  ten 
lepers  to  cure.  Some  of  you  may  have  been  surprised 
that  there  was  a  great  hue  and  cry  raised  before  these 
sermons  were  begun,  and  sometimes  the  hue  and  cry 
was  made  by  professors  of  religion.  I  was  not  surprised. 
The  simple  fact  is  that  in  all  our  churches  there  are  lepers 
who  do  not  want  their  scabs  touched,  and  they  foresaw 
that  before  I  got  through  with  this  series  of  sermons  I 
would  show  up  some  of  the  wickedness  and  rottenness  of 
what  is  called  the  upper  class.  The  devil  howled  be- 
cause he  knew  I  was  going  to  hit  him  hard!  Now,  I  say 
to  all  such  men,  whether  in  the  church  or  out  of  it,  "Ye 
hypocrites,  ye  generation  of  vipers,  how  can  ye  escape 
the  damnation  of  hell?" 

HAUNTS  OF  SIN  ARE  SUPPORTED  BY  MEN  OF  WEALTH. 

I  notice  in  my  midnight  exploration  with  these  high 
officials  that  the  haunts  of  sin  are  chiefly  supported  by 
men  of  means  and  men  of  wealth.  The  young  men  re- 
cently come  from  the  country,  of  whom  I  spoke  last  Sab- 
bath morning,  are  on  small  salary,  and  they  have  but 
little  money  to  spend  in  sin,  and  if  they  go  into  luxuriant 
iniquity  the  employer  finds  it  out  by  the  inflamed  eye  and 
the  marks  of  dissipation,  and  they  are  discharged. 


THE  LEPERS  OF  HJGH    LIFE.  243 

The  luxuriant  places  of  iniquity  are  supported  by  men, 
who  come  down  from  the  fashionable  avenues  of  New 
York,  and  cross  over  from  some  of  the  finest  mansions  of 
Brooklyn.  Prominent  business  men  from  Boston,  Phil- 
adelphia, and  Chicago,  and  Cincinnati  patronize  these 
places  of  crime.  I  could  call  the  names  of  prominent 
men  in  our  cluster  of  cities  who  patronize  these  places  of 
iniquity,  and  I  may  call  their  names  before  I  get  through 
this  course  of  sermons,  though  the  fabric  of  New  York 
and  Brooklyn  society  tumble  into  wreck.  Judges  of 
courts,  distinguished  lawyers,  officers  of  the  church, 
political  orators  standing  on  Republican  and  Democratic 
and  Greenback  platforms  talking  about  God  and  good 
morals  until  you  might  suppose  them  to  be  evangelists 
expecting  a  thousand  converts  in  one  night.  Call  the 
roll  of  dissipation  in  the  haunts  of  iniquity  any  night, 
and  if  the  inmates  will  answer,  you  will  find  there,  stock- 
brokers from  Wall  street,  large  importers  from  Broad- 
way, iron  merchants,  leather  merchants,  cotton  mer- 
chants, hardware  merchants,  wholesale  grocers,  repre- 
sentatives from  all    the  commercial  and   wealthy  classes. 

PUTRFFACTIONS   COVERED  WITH  CAMEL'S-HAIR  SHAWLS. 

Talk  about  the  heathenism  below  canal  street!  There 
is  a  worse  .heathenism  above  canal  street.  I  prefer  that 
kind  of  heathenism  which  wallows  in  filth  and  disgusts 
the  beholder  rather  than  that  heathenism  which  covers 
up  its  walking  putrefaction  with  camel's-hair  shawl  and 
point  lace,  and  rides  in  turnouts  worth  $3,000,  liveried 
driver  ahead  and  rosetted  flunky  behind.  We  have  been 
talking  so  much  about  the  gospel  for  the  masses;  now  let 
us  talk  a  little  about  the  gospel  for  the  lepers  of  society, 


244  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

for  the  millionaire  sots,  for  the  portable  lazzarettos  of 
upper-tendom.  It  is  the  iniquity  that  comes  down  from 
the  higher  circles  of  society  that  supports  the  haunts  of 
crime,  and  it  is  gradually  turning  our  cities  into  Sodoms 
and  Gomorrahs  waiting  for  the  fire  and  brimstone  tem- 
pest of  the  Lord  God  who  whelmed  the  cities  of  the 
plain.  We  want  about  five  hundred  Anthony  Comstocks 
to  go  forth  and  explore  and  expose  the  abomination  of 
high  life. 

A  NEW   YORK  BROWN  STONE    HELL. 

For  eight  or  ten  years  there  stood  within  sight  of  the 
most  fashionable  New  York  drive  a  Moloch  temple,  a 
brown-stone  hell  on  earth,  which  neither  the  Mayor, 
nor  the  judges,  nor  the  police  dared  touch,  when  An- 
thony Comstock,  a  Christian  man  of  less  than  average 
physical  stature,  and  with  cheek  scarred  by  the  knife  of 
a  desperado  whom  he  had  arrested,  walking  into  that 
palace  of  the  damned  on  Fifth  avenue,  and  in  the  name 
of  God  put  an  end  to  it,  the  priestess  presiding  at  the 
orgies  retreating  by  suicide  into  the  lost  world,  her  bleed- 
ing corpse  found  in  her  own  bath-tub.  May  the  eternal 
God  have  mercy  on  our  cities.  Gilded  sin  comes  down 
from  these  high  places  into  the  upper  circles  of  iniquity, 
and  then  on  gradually  down,  until  in  five  years  it  makes 
the  whole  pilgrimage,  from  the  marble  pillar  on  the 
brilliant  avenue  clear  down  to  the  cellars  on  Wall  street. 
The  officer  on  that  midnight  exploration  said  to  me: 

"Look  at  them  now,  and  look  at  them  three  years 
from  now  when  all  this  glory  has  departed;  they'll  be  a 
heap  of  rags  in  the  station-house!"  Another  of  the  of- 
ficers said  to  me: 


THE  LEPERS  OF  HIGH    LIFE.  245 

''That  is  the  daughter  of  one  of  the  wealthiest  families 
on  Madison  square!" 

THE  MAN  AND  THE  WOMAN  ALIKE  GUILTY. 

But  I  have  something  more  amazing  to  tell  you  than 
that  the  men  of  means  and  wealth  support  these  haunts 
of  iniquity,  and  that  is,  that  they  are  chiefly  supported 
by  heads  of  families — fathers  and  husbands,  with  the 
awful  perjury  of  broken  marriage  vows  upon  them,  with 
a  niggardly  stipend  left  at  home  for  the  support  of  their 
families,  going  forth  with  their  thousands  for  the  dia- 
monds and   wardrobe  and  equipage  of  iniquity. 

In  the  name  of  heaven,  I  denounce  this  public  iniquity. 
Let  such  men  be  hurled  out  of  decent  circles.  If  they 
will  not  repent,  overboard  with  them! 

I  lift  one-half  the  burden  of  malediction  from  the  un- 
pitied  head  of  offending  woman,  and  hurl  it  on  the  blast- 
ed pate  of  offending  man! 

Society  needs  a  new  division  of  its  anathema.  By 
what  law  of  justice  does  burning  excoriation  pursue  of- 
fending woman  down  off  the  precipices  of  destruction, 
while  offending  man,  kid-gloved,  walks  in  refined  circles, 
invited  up  if  he  have  money,  advanced  into  political  re- 
cognition, while  all  the  doors  of  high  life  open  at  the  first 
rap  of  his  gold- headed  cane? 

I  say,  if  you  let  one  come  back,  let  them  both  come 
back.      If  one  must  go  down,  let  them  both  go  down. 

I  give  you  as  my  opinion  that  the  eternal  perdition  of 
all  other  sinners  will  be  a  heaven  compared  with  the 
punishment  everlasting  of  that  man  who,  turning  his  back 
upon  her  whom  he  swore  to  protect  and  defend  until 
death,  and  upon   his  children,  whose  destiny  may  be  de- 


246  EVILS  OF     THE    CITIES. 

cided  by  his  example,  goes  forth    to  seek  affectional  alli- 
ances eisewhere.        For  such  a   man  the  portion    will  be 
fire,    and    hail,  and    tempest,  and    darkness,    and  blood, 
and  anguish,  and  despair  forever,  forever,  forever! 

HEADS  OF  FAMILIES   SUPPORT    THE  HAUNTS  OF  VICE. 

My  friends,  there  has  got  to  be  a  reform  in  this  matter, 
or  American  society  will  go  to  pieces.  Under  the  head 
of  "incompatibility  of  temper,"  nine-tenths  of  the  abom- 
ination goes  on. 

What  did  you  get  married  for  if  your  dispositions  are 
incompatible? 

"Oh!"  you  say,  I  rushed  into  it  without  thought." 

Then  you  ought  to  be  willing  to  suffer  the  punishment 
for  making  a  fool  of  yourself!  Incompatibility  of  tem- 
per! You  are  responsible  for  at  least  a  half  of  the  in- 
compatibility. Why  are  you  not  honest  and  willing  to 
admit  either  that  you  did  not  control  your  temper,  or 
that  you  had  already  broken  your  marriage  oath?  In  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  the  thousand,  in- 
compatibility is  a  phrase  to  cover  up  wickedness  already 
enacted. 

I  declare  in  the  presence  of  this  city  and  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  world  that  heads  of  families  are  supporting 
these  haunts  of  iniquity. 

I  wish  there  might  be  a  police  raid  lasting  a  great 
while,  that  they  would  just  go  down  through  these  places 
of  sin  and  gather  up  all  the  prominent  business  men  of 
the  city,  and  march  them  down  through  the  street  follow- 
ed by  about  twenty  reporters  to  take  their  names  and  put 
them  in  full  capitals  in  the  next  day's  paper! 

Let  such  a  course  be  undertaken  in    our  cities,  and   in 


THE    LEPERS  OF  HIGH  LIFE.  247 

six  months  there  would  be  eighty  per  cent  off  your  public 
crime. 

It  is  not  now  that  the  young  men  and  the  boys  that 
need  so  much  looking  after;  it  is  their  fathers  and 
mothers. 

Let  heads  of  families  cease  to  patronize  places  of  ini- 
quity, and  in  a  short  time  they  would  crumble  to  ruin. 

BROOKLYN  A   WELL  REGULATED  CITY. 

But  you  meet  me  with  the  question,  ''Why  don't  the 
city  authorities  put    an  end  to  such  places    of    iniquity?" 

I  answer  in  regard  to  Brooklyn,  the  work  has  already 
been  done.  Six  years  ago  there  were  in  the  radius  of 
your  City  Hall  thirty-eight  gambling  saloons.  They  are 
all  broken  up.  The  ivory  and  wooden  "chips"  that  came 
from  the  gambling-hells  into  the  Police  Headquarters 
came  in  by  the  peck.  How  many  inducements  were 
offered  to  our  officials,  such  as:  "This  will  be  worth  a 
thousand  dollars  to  you  if  you  will  let  it  go  on."  "This 
will  be  worth  five  thousand  if  you  will  let  it  go  on. "  But 
our  commissioners  of  police,  mightier  than  any  bribe, 
pursued  their  work  until,  while  beyond  the  city  limits 
there  may  be  exceptions,  within  the  city  limits  of  Brook- 
lyn there  is  not  a  gambling-hell,  or  policy-shop,  or  a 
house  of  death  so  pronounced.  There  are  under-ground 
iniquities  and  hidden  scenes,  but  none  so  pronounced. 

HOW  IT  WAS  DONE. 

Every  Monday  morning  all    the  captains    of  the  police 

make    reports    in  regard    to    their   respective    precincts. 

When  the    work   began,    the  police  in  authority  at   that 

time  said: 

'  "O!  it  can't  be  done;  we  can't  get  into  these  places  of 


248  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

iniquity  to  see  them,  and  hence  we  can't  break  them  up." 

"Then,"  said  the  commissioners  of  police,  "break  in 
the  doors;"  and  it  is  astonishing  how  soon  after  the 
shoulders  of  a  stout  policeman  goes  against  the  door,  it 
gets  off  its  hinges.  Some  of  the  captains  of  the  police 
said: 

"This  thing  has  been  going  on  so  long,  it  cannot  be 
crushed." 

"Then,"  said  the  commissioners  of  police,  "we'll  get 
other  captains  of  police."  The  work  went  on  until  now, 
if  a  reformer  wants  the  commissioners  of  police  to  show 
him  the  haunts  of  iniquity  in  Brooklyn,  there  are  none 
to  show  him.  If  you  know  a  single  case  that  is  an  ex- 
ception to  what  I  say,  report  it  to  me  at  the  close  of  this 
service  at  the  foot  of  this  platform,  and  I  will  warrant 
that  within  two  hours  after  you  report  the  case  Com- 
missioner Jourdan,  Superintendent  Campbell,  Inspector 
Waddy,  and  as  many  of  the  twenty-five  detectives  and  of 
the  five  hundred  and  fifty  policemen  as  are  necessary  will 
come  down  on  it  like  an  Alpine  avalanche.  If  you  do 
not  report  it,  it  is  because  you  are  a  coward,  or  else  be- 
cause you  are  in  the  sin  yourself,  and  you  do  not  want  it 
shown  up.  You  shall  bear  the  whole  responsibility,  and 
it  shall  not  be  thrown  on  the  hard-working  and  heroic 
detective  and  police  force.  But  you  say:  "How  has 
this  general  clearing  out  of  gambling-hells  and  places  of 
iniquity  been  accomplished?"  Our  authorities  have  been 
backed  up  by  a  high  public  sentiment 

In  a  city  which  has  on  its  judicial  bench  such  magnifi- 
cent men  as  Neilson,  and  Reynolds,  and  McCue,  and 
Moore,    and  Pratt,  and  others  whom    I  am  not  fortunate 


THE  LEPERS  OF    HIGH  LIFE.  249 

enough  to  know,  there  must  be  a  mighty  impulse  up- 
ward toward  God  and  good  morals.  We  have  in  the 
high  places  of  this  city  men  not  only  with  great  heads, 
but  with  great  hearts. 

THE  PRODIGAL  SON  OVER  AGAIN. 

A  young  man  disappeared  from  his  father's  house  about 
the  time  the  Brooklyn  Theatre  burned,  and  it  was  sup- 
posed that  he  had  been  destroyed  in  that  ruin.  The 
father,  broken-hearted,  sold  his  property  in  Brooklyn,  and 
in  desolation  left  the  city.  Recently  the  wanderer  came 
back.  He  could  not  find  his  father,  who,  in  departing, 
had  given  no  idea  of*his  destination.  The  case  was  re- 
ported to  a  man  high  in  official  position,  and  he  sat  down 
and  wrote  a  letter  to  all  the  chiefs  of  police  in  the  United 
States,  in  order  that  he  might  deliver  that  prodigal  son 
into  the  arms  of  his  broken-hearted  father.  A  few  days 
ago  it  was  found  that  the  father  was  in  California.  I 
understand  that  son  is  now  on  his  way  to  meet  him,  and 
it  will  be  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  over  again  when 
they  embrace  each  other,  and  the  father  says:  ''Rejoice 
with  me,  for  this  my  son  was  dead  and  is  alive  again, 
was  lost  and  is  found."  I  have  forgotten  the  name  of 
the  father,  I  have  forgotten  the  name  of  the  son;  but  I 
have  not  forgotten  the  name  of  the  officer  whose  sympa- 
thetic heart  beats  so  loud  under  his  badg<*  of  office.  It 
was  Patrick  Campbell,  Superintendent  of  the  Brooklyn 
police. 

I  do  not  mention  these  things  as  a  matter  of  city  pride, 
nor  as  a  matter  of  exultation,  but  of  gratitude  to  God 
that  Brooklyn   to-day  stands    foremost  among  American 


2  50  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

cities  in  its  freedom  from  places  of  iniquity.  But  Brook- 
lyn has  a  large  share  of  sin. 

Where  do  the  people  of  Brooklyn  go  when  they  pro- 
pose to  commit  abomination?     To  New  York. 

I  was  told  in  the  midnight  exploration  in  New  York 
with  the  police  that  there  are  some  places  almost  entirely 
supported  by  men  and  women  from  Brooklyn.  We  are 
one  city  after  all — -one  now  before  the  bridge  is  com- 
pleted, to  be  more  thoroughly  one  when  the  bridge  is 
done. 

WHY  NEW     YORK  IS  SO  BAD. 

Well,  then,  you  press  me  with  anotner  question: 
"Why  don't  the  public  authorities  of  New  York  extirpate 
these  haunts  of  iniquity?"  Before  I  give  you  a  definite 
answer  I  want  to  say  that  the  obstacles  in  that  city  are 
greater  than  in  any  city  on  this  continent.  It  is  so  vast. 
It  is  the  landing-place  of  European  immigration.  Its 
wealth  is  mighty  to  establish  and  defend  places  of  ini- 
quity. Twice  a  year  there  are  incursions  of  people  from 
all  parts  of  the  land  coming  on  the  spring  and  fall  trade. 
It  requires  twenty  times  the  municipal  energy  to  keep 
order  in  New  York  that  it  does  in  any  city  from  Portland 
to  San  Francisco.  But  still  you  pursue  me  with  the 
question,  and  I  am  to  answer  it  by  telling  you  that  there 
is  infinite  fault  and  immensity  of  blame  to  be  divided  be- 
tween three  parties.  First,  the  police  of  New  York  city- 
So  far  as  I  know  them  they  are  courteous  gentlemen. 
They  have  had  great  discouragement,  they  tell  me,  in  the 
fact  that  when  they  arrest  crime  and  bring  it  before  the 
courts  the  witnesses  will  not  appear  lest  they  criminate 
themselves.     They  tell  me  also  that  they  have  been  dis- 


THE  LEPERS  OF  HIGH   LIFE.  251 

couraged  by  the  fact  that  so  many  suits  have  been  brought 
against  them  for  damages.  But  after  all,  my  friends, 
they  must  take  their  share  of  blame. 

POLICE  IN  COMPLICITY  WITH  CRIME. 

I  have  come  to  the  conclusion,  after  much  research 
and  investigation,  that  there  are  captains  of  police  in 
New  York  who  are  in  complicity  with  crime — men  who 
make  thousands  of  dollars  a  year  for  the  simple  fact  that 
they  will  not  tell,  and  will  permit  places  of  iniquity  to 
stand  month  after  month,  and  year  after  year. 

I  am  told  that  there  are  captains  of  police  in  New 
York  who  get  a  percentage  on  every  bottle  of  wine  sold 
in  the  haunts  of  death,  and  that  they  get  a  revenue  from 
all  the  shambles  of  sin.       What  a  state  of  things  this  is! 

In  the  twenty-ninth  precinct  of  New  York  there  are 
one  hundred  and  twenty-one  dens  of  death.  Night  after 
night,  month  after  month,  year  after  year,  untouched. 

In  the  west  Twenty-sixth  street  there  are  whole  blocks 
that  are  pandemonium.  There  are  between  five  and  six 
hundred  dens  of  darkness  in  the  city  of  New  York,  where 
there  are  2,500  policemen. 

Not  long  ago  there  was  a  masquerade  ball  in  which 
the  masculine  and  feminine  offenders  of  society  were  the 
participants,  and  some  of  the  police  danced  in  the  mas- 
querade and  distributed  the  prizes! 

There  is  the  grandest  opportunity  that  has  ever  opened, 
for  any  American,  open  now.  It  is  for  that  man  in  high 
official  position  who  shall  get  into  his  stirrups  and  say, 
"Men,  follow?"  and  who  shall  in  one  night  sweep  around 
and  take  all  of  these  leaders  of  iniquity,  whether  on  sus- 
picion or  on  positive  proof  saying,   "I'll  take  the  respon- 


252  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

sibility,  come  on!  I  put  my  private  property  and  m\ 
political  aspirations  and  my  life  into  this  crusade  against 
the  powers  of  darkness."  That  man  would  be  Mayor  ol 
the  city  of  New  York.  That  man  would  be  fit  to  be  Pres- 
ident of  the  United  States. 

But  the  second  part  of  the  blame  I  must  put  at  the 
door  of  the  District  Attorney  of  New  York.  I  under- 
stand he  is  an  honorable  gentleman,  but  he  has  not  time 
to  attend  to  all  these  cases.  Literally,  there  are  thou- 
sands of  cases  unpursued  for  lack  of  time.  Now,  I  say, 
it  is  the  business  of  New  York  to  give  assistants,  and 
clerks,  and  help  to  the  District  Attorney  until  all  these 
places  shall  go  down  in  quick  retribution. 

CHRISTIANS  ARE  MUCH  TO  BLAME. 

But  the  third  part  of  the  blame,  and  the  heaviest  part 
of  it,  I  put  on  the  moral  and  Christian  people  of  our 
cities,  who  are  guilty  of  most  culpable  indifferences  on 
this  whole  subject.  When  Tweed  stole  his  millions, 
large  audiences  were  assembled  in  indignation,  Charles 
O'Conor  was  retained,  committees  of  safety  and  investi- 
gation were  appointed,  and  a  great  stir  made;  but  night 
by  night  there  is  a  theft  and  a  burglary  of  city  morals  as 
much  worse  than  Tweed's  robberies  as  his  were  worse 
than  common  shop-lifting,  and  it  has  very  little  opposi- 
tion. I  tell  you  what  New  York  wants;  it  wants  indig- 
nation meetings  in  Cooper  Institute  and  Academy  of 
Music  and  Chickering  and  Irving  Halls  to  compel  the 
public  authorities  to  do  their  work  and  to  send  the  police, 
with  clubs  and  lanterns  and  revolvers,  to  turn  off  the 
colored  lights  of  the  dance-houses,  and  to  mark  for  con- 
fiscation  the    trunks    and  wardrobes  and    furniture   and 


THE  LEPERS  OF  HIGH    LIFE.  253 

scenery,  and  to  gather  up  all  the  keepers,  and  all  the 
inmates,  and  all  the  patrons,  and  march  them  out  to  the 
Tombs,  fife  and  drums  sounding  the  Rogue's  March. 

RAGING  VOLCANOES  BENEATH  OUR    CITIES. 

While  there  are  men  smoking  their  cigarettes,  with 
their  feet  on  Turkish  divans,  shocked  that  minister  of  re- 
ligion should  explore  and  expose  the  iniquity  of  city  life, 
there  are  raging  underneath  our  great  cities  a  Cotopaxi, 
a  Stromboli,  a  Vesuvius,  ready  to  bury  us  in  ashes  and 
scoria  deeper  than  that  which  overwhelmed  Pompeii  and 
Herculaneum.  Oh!  I  wish  the  time  would  come  for  the 
plowshare  of  public  indignation  to  push  through  and  rip 
up  and  turn  under  those  parts  of  New  York  which  are 
the  plague  of  the  nation.  Now  is  the  time  to  hitch  up 
the  team  to  this  plowshare.  In  this  time,  when  Mr. 
Cooper  is  Mayor,  and  Mr.  Kelly  is  Comptroller,  and  Mr. 
Nichols  is  Police  Commissioner,  and  Superintendent 
Walling  wears  the  badge  of  office,  and  there  is  on  the 
judicial  benches  of  New  York  an  array  of  the  best  men 
that  have  ever  occupied  these  positions  since  the  founda- 
tion of  the  city — Recorder  Hackett,  Police  Magistrates 
Gilbreth,  Wandell,  Morgan  and  Duffy;  such  men  as  Gil- 
dersleeve,  and  Sutherland,  and  Davis,  and  Curtis;  and 
on  the  United  States  Court  bench  in  New  York  such 
men  as  Benedict,  and  Blatchford,  and  Choate — now  is 
the  time  to  make  an  extirpation  of  iniqnity.  Now  is  the 
time  for  a  great  crusade,  and  for  the  people  of  our  cities 
in  great  public  assemblages  to  say  to  police  authority: 
"Go  ahead, and  we  will  back  you  with  our  lives,  our  for- 
tunes, and  our  sacred  honor." 

I  must  adjourn   until  next    Sabbath  morning    much  of 


2  54  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES. 

what  I  wanted  to  say  abont  certain  forms  of  iniquity 
which  I  saw  rampant  in  the  night  of  my  exploration  with 
the  city  officials.  But  before  I  stop  this  morning  I  want 
to  have  one  word  with  a  class  of  men  with  whom  people 
have  so  little  patience  that  they  never  get  a  kind  word  of 
invitation.  I  mean  the  men  who  have  forsaken  their 
homes.      Oh!  my  brother,  return.      You  say: 

RE-ESTABLISH    YOUR  HOME. 

"I  can't;   I  have  no  home;  my  home  is  broken  up." 

Re-establish  your  home.  It  has  been  done  in  other 
cases,  why  may  it  not  be  done  in  your  case? 

"Oh,"  you  say,  "we  parted  for  life;  we  have  divided 
our  property;  we  have  divided  our  effects." 

I  ask  you,  did  you  divide  the  marriage  ring  of  that 
bright  day  when  you  started  life  together? 

Did  you  divide  your  family  Bible?  If  so,  where  did 
you  divide  it?  Across  the  Old  Testament,  where  the 
Ten  Commandments  denounce  your  sin,  or  across  the 
New  Testament,  where  Christ  savs:  "Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart?"  Or  did  you  divide  it  between  the  Old 
and  the  New  Testament,  right  across  the  family  record 
of  weddings  and  births  and  deaths? 

Did  you  divide  the  cradle  in  which  you  rocked  your 
first  born? 

Did  you  divide  the  little  grave  in  the  cemetery,  over 
which  you  stood  with  linked  arms,  looking  down  in  awful 
bereavement? 

Above  all,  I  asK  you,  aid  you  divide  your  hope  for 
heaven,  so  that  there  is  no  full  hope  left  for  either  of 
you?  Go  back!  There  may  be  a  great  gulf  between  you 
and  once   happy  domesticty;  but  Christ  will  bridge  that 


THE  LEPERS  OF    HIGH  LIFE. 


255 


gulf.  It  may  be  a  bridge  of  sighs.  Turn  toward  it.  Put 
your  foot  on  the  over-arching  span.  Hear  it!  It  is  a 
voice  unrolling  from  the  throne:  "He  that  overcometh 
shall  inherit  all  things,  and  I  will  be  unto  him  a  God, 
and  he  shall  be  my  son;  but  the  unbelieving,  and  the 
sorcerers,  and  whoremongers,  and  the  adulterers,  and  the 
idolators,  and  all  liars  shall  have  their  part  in  the  lake 
which  burneth  with  fire  and  brimstone — which  is  the 
second  death!" 


-_  »     .  \r~  •■; 


■k 


THE  GATES  OF  HELL. 


"The  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it." — St.  Mathew,  xvi,  18. 

►t  is  only  ten  o'clock,  said  the  officer  of  the  law,  as  we 
got  into  the  carriage  for  the  midnight  exploration — 
."it  is  only  ten  o'clock,  and  it  is  too  early  to  see  the 
places  that  we  wish  to  see,  for  the  theaters  have  not  yet 
let  out." 

I  said,    "What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 
"Well,  he  said,    "the  places  of  iniquity  are  not  in  full 
blast    until    the   people     have    time    to  arrive    from    the 
theaters." 

So  we  loitered  on,  and  the  officer  told  the  driver  to 
stop  on  a  street  where  is  one  of  the  costliest  and  most 
brilliant  gambling-houses  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

A  GAMBLING    HOUSE    DESCRIBED. 

As  we  came  up  in  front  all  seemed  dark.  The  blinds 
were  down;  the  door  was  guarded;  but  after  a  whispering 
of  the  officer  with  the  guard  at  the  door,  we  were  ad- 
mitted into  the  hall,  and  thence  into  the  parlors,  around 
one  table  finding  eight  or  ten  men  in  mid-life,  well  dress- 
ed— all  the  work  going  on  in  silence,  save  the  noise  of 
the  rattling  "chips"  on  the  gambling  table  in  one  parlor, 
and  the  revolving  ball  of  the  roulette  table  in  the  other 
parlor.  Some  of  these  men,  we  were  told,  had  served 
terms  in  prison;  some  were  ship-wrecked  bankers,  and 
brokers,  and  money-dealers,  and  some  were  going  their 
first  rounds  of  vice — but  all  intent  upon  the  table,  as 
large  or  small  fortunes  moved  up  and  down  before  them. 

[256] 


THE  GATES  OF  HELL.  257 

Oh!  there  was  something  awfully  solemn  in  the  silence — 
the  intent  gaze,  the  suppressed  emotion  of  the  players. 
No  one  looked  up.  They  all  had  money  in  the  rapids, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  some  saw,  as  they  sat  there,  horses 
and  carriages,  and  houses  and  lands,  and  home  and  family 
rushing  down  into  the  vortex.  A  man's  life  would  not 
have  been  worth  a  farthing  in  that  presence  had  he  not 
been  accompanied  by  the  police,  if  he  had  been  supposed 
to  be  on  a  Christian  errand  of  observation.  Some  of 
these  men  went  by  private  key,  some  went  in  by  careful 
introduction,  some  were  taken  in  by  patrons,  of  the 
establishment.  The  officer  of  the  law  told  me:  ''None 
get  in  here  except  by  police  mandate,  or  by  some  letter 
of  a  patron."  While  we  were  there  a  young  man  came 
in,  put  his  money  down  on  the  roulette-table,  and  lost; 
put  more  money  down  on  the  roulette-table,  and  lost; 
put  more  money  down  on  the  roulette-table,  and  lost; 
then  feeling  in  his  pockets  for  more  money,  rinding  none, 
in  severe  silence  he  turned  his  back  upon  the  scene  and 
passed  out. 

All  the  literature  about  the  costly  magnificence  of  such 
places  is  untrue.  Men  kept  their  hats  on  and  smoked, 
and  there  was  nothing  in  the  upholstery  or  the  furniture 
to  forbid.  While  we  stood  there  men  lost  their  property 
and  lost  their  souls.  O!  merciless  place.  Not  once  in 
all  the  history  of  that  gambling-house  has  there  been 
one  word  of  sympathy  uttered  for  the  losers  at  the  game. 

tiEATH  AND    THE  GAMBLERS. 

Sir  Horace  Walpole  said  that  a  man  dropped  dead  in 
front  of  one  of  the  club-houses  of  London;  his  body  was 
carried  into  the  club-house,  and  the  members  of  the  club 


258  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

began  immediately  to  bet  as  to  whether  he  were  dead  or 
alive,  and  when  it  was  proposed  to  test  the  matter  by 
bleeding  him,  it  was  only  hindered  by  the  suggestion 
that  it  would  be  unfair  to  some  of  the  players!  In  these 
gaming-houses  of  our  cities,  men  have  their  property 
wrung  away  from  them,  and  then  they  go  out,  some  of 
them  to  drown  their  grief  in  strong  drink,  some  to  ply 
the  counterfeiter's  pen,  and  to  restore  their  fortunes, 
some  resort  to  the  suicide's  revolver,  but  all  going  down, 
and  that  work  proceeds  day 'by  day,  and  night  by  night, 
until  it  is  estimated  that  every  day  in  Christendom  eighty 
million  dollars  pass  from  hand  to  hand  through  gambling 
practices,  ^.nd  every  year  in  Christendom  one  hundred 
and  twenty-three  billion,  one  hundred  million  dollars 
change  hands  in  that  way. 

'•But,"  I  said,  ''it  is  eleven  o'clock,  and  we  must  be 
off."  We  passed  out  into  the  hallway  and  so  into  the 
street,  the  burly  guard  slamming  the  door  of  the  house 
after  us,  and  we  got  into  the  carriage  and  rolled  on  to- 
ward the  gates  of  hell.  You  know  about  the  gates  of 
heaven.  You  have  often  heard  them  preached  about. 
There  are  three  to  each  point  of  the  compass.  On  the 
north,  three  gates;  on  the  south,  three  gates;  on  the  east, 
three  gates;  on  the  west,  three  gates;  and  each  gate  is  of 
solid  pearl.  Oh!  gate  of  heaven;  may  we  all  get  into  it. 
But  who  shall  describe  the  gates  of  hell  spoken  of  in  my 
text?  These  gates  are  burnished  until  they  sparkle  and 
glisten  in  the  gas-light.  They  are  mighty,  and  set  in 
sockets  of  deep  and  dreadful  masonry.  They  are  high, 
so  that  those  who  are  in  may  not  clamber  over  and  get 
out.        They    are    heavy,    but  they  swing  easily  in  to  let 


THE  GATES  OF  HELL.  259 

those  go  in  who  are  to  be  destroyed.  Well,  my  friends, 
it  is  always  safe  to  go  where  God  tells  you  to  go,  and 
God  had  told  me  to  go  through  these  gates  of  hell,  and 
explore  and  report,  and,  taking  three  of  the  high  police 
authorities  and  two  of  the  elders  of  my  church,  I  went 
in,  and  I  am  here  this  morning  to  sketch  the  gates  of 
hell. 

I  remember,  when  the  Franco-German  war  was  going 
on,  that  I  stood  one  day  in  Paris  looking  at  the  gates  of 
the  Tuilleries,  and  I  was  so  absorbed  in  the  sculpturing 
at  the  top  of  the  gates — the  masonry  and  the  bronze — 
that  I  forgot  myself,  and  after  awhile,  looking  down,  I 
saw  that  there  were  officers  of  the  law  scrutinizing  me, 
supposing,  no  doubt,  I  was  a  German,  and  looking  at 
those  gates  for  adverse  purposes.  But,  my  friends,  we 
shall  not  stand  looking  at  the  outside  of  the  gates  of 
hell.  Through  this  midnight  exploration  I  shall  tell 
you  of  both  sides,  and  I  shall  tell  you  what  these  gates 
are  made  of.  With  the  hammer  of  God's  truth  I  shall 
pound  on  the  brazen  panels,  and  with  the  lantern  of 
God's  truth  I  shall  flash  a  light  upon  the    shining  hinges. 

GATE  OF  IMPURE   LITERATURE. 

Gate  the  first:  Impure  literature.  Anthony  Corn- 
stock  seized  twenty  tons  of  bad  books,  -plates,  and  letter- 
press, and  when  our  Professor  Cochran,  of  the  Poly- 
technic Institute,  poured  the  destructive  acids  on  those 
plates,  they  smoked  in  the  righteous  annihilation.  And 
yet  a  great  deal  of  the  bad  literature  of  the  day  is  not 
gripped  of  the  law.  It  is  strewn  in  your  parlors;  it  is  in 
your  libraries.  Some  of  your  children  read  it  at  night 
after  they  have  retired,  the  gas-burner  swung   as   near  as 


260  EVILS   OF  THE    CITIES. 

possible  to  their  pillow.  Much  of  this  literature  is  under 
the  title  of  scientific  information. 

A  book  agent  with  one  of  these  infernal  books,  glossed 
over  with  scientific  nomenclature,  went  into  a  hotel  and 
sold  in  one  day  a  hundred  copies,  and  sold  them  all  to 
one  woman!  It  is  appalling  that  men  and  women  who 
can  get  through  their  family  physician  all  the  useful  in- 
formation they  may  need,  and  without  any  contamina- 
tion, should  wade  chin  deep  through  such  accursed  liter- 
ature under  the  plea  of  getting  useful  knowledge,  and 
that  printing  presses,  hoping  to  be  called  decent,  lend 
themselves  to  this  infamy.  Fathers  and  mothers,  be  not 
deceived  by  the  title,  "medical  works."  Nine-tenths  of 
those  books  come  hot  from  the  lost  world,  though  they 
may  have  on  them  the  names  of  the  publishing-houses  of 
New  York  and  Philadelphia. 

Then  there  is  all  the  novelette  literature  of  the  day 
flung  over  the  land  by  the  million.  As  there  are  good 
novels  that  are  long,  so  I  suppose  there  may  be  good 
novels  that  are  short,  and  so  there  may  be  a  good  novel- 
ette, but  it  is  the  exception.  No  one — mark  this — no 
one  systematically  reads  the  average  novelette  of  this 
day  and  keeps  either  integrity  or  virtue.  The  most  of 
these  novelettes  are  written  by  broken-down  literary  men 
for  small  compensation,  on  the  principle  that,  having 
failed  in  literature  elevated  and  pure,  they  hope  to  suc- 
ceed in  the  tainted  and  the  nasty.  Oh!  this  is  a  wide 
gate  of  hell.  Every  panel  is  made  out  of  a  bad  book  or 
newspaper.  Every  hinge  is  the  interjoined  type  of  a  cor- 
rupt printing-press.  Every  bolt  or  lock  of  that  gate  is 
made  out  of  the  plate  of  an  unclean  pictorial.       In  other 


THE  GATAS  OF  HELL.  26  I 

words,  there  are  a  million  men  and  women  in  the  United 
States  to-day  reading  themselves  into  hell. 

A  BAD  BOOK  SLEW  HER. 

When  in  your  own  beautiful  city  a  prosperous  family 
fell  into  ruins  through  the  misdeeds  of  one  of  its  members, 
the  amazed  mother  said  to  the  officer  of  the  law:  "Why 
I  never  supposed  there  was  anything  wrong.  I  never 
thonght  there  could  be  anything  wrong."  Then  she  sat 
weeping  in  silence  for  some  time,  and  said:  "Oh!  I 
have  got  it  now!  I  know,  I  know!  I  found  in  her 
bureau  after  she  went  away  a  bad  book.  That's  what  slew 
her." 

THE  LEPROUS  BOOK  SELLERS. 

These  leprous  booksellers  have  gathered  up  the  cata- 
logues of  all  the  male  and  female  seminaries  in  the  Uni- 
ted States,  catalogues  containing  the  names  and  the  resi- 
dences of  all  the  students,  and  circulars  of  death  are  sent 
to  every  one,  without  any  exception.  Can  you  imagine 
anything  more  deathful?  There  is  not  a  young  person, 
male  or  female,  or  an  old  person,  who  has  not  has  offered 
to  him  or  her  a  bad  book  or  a  bad  picture.  Scour  your 
house  to  find  out  whether  there  are  any  of  these  ad- 
ders coiled  on  your  parlor  center-table,  or  coiled  amid 
the  toilet  set  on  the  dressing-case.  I  adjnre  you  before 
the  sun  goes  down  to  explore  your  family  libraries  with 
an  inexorable  scrutiny.  Remember  that  one  bad  book 
or  bad  picture  may  do  the  work  for  eternity.  I  want 
to  arouse  all  your  suspicions  about  novelettes.  I  want 
to  put  you  on  the  watch  against  everything  that  may 
seem  like  surreptitious  correspondence  through  the  post- 
office.        I  want  you  to  understand  that  impure  literature 


262  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

is  one  of  the  broadest,    highest,    mightiest   gates    of  the 
lost. 

GATE  OF  THE  DISSOLUTE  DANCE. 

Gate  the  second:  The  dissolute  dance.  You  shall  not 
divert  me  to  the  general  subject  of  dancing.  Whatever 
you  may  think  of  the  parlor  dance,  or  the  methodid  mo- 
tion of  the  body  to  sounds  of  music  in  the  family  or  the 
social  circle,  I  am  not  now  discussing  that  question.  I 
want  you  to  unite  with  me  this  morning  in  recognizing 
the  fact  that  there  is  a  dissolute  dance.  You  know  of 
what  I  speak.  It  is  seen  not  only  in  the  low  haunts  of 
death,  but  in  elegant  mansions.  It  is  the  first  step  to 
eternal  ruin  for  a  great  multitude  of  both  sexes.  You 
know,  my  friends,  what  postures,  and  attitudes,  and  fig- 
ures are  suggested  of  the  devil. 

They  who  glide  into  the  dissolute  dance  glide  over  an 
inclined  plane,  and  the  dance  is  swifter  and  swifter, 
wilder  and  wilder,  until  with  the  speed  of  lightning  they 
whirl  off  the  edges  of  a  decent  life  into  a  fiery  future. 
This  gate  of  hell  swings  across  the  Axminister  of  many  a 
fine  parlor,  and  across  the  ball-room  of  the  summer 
watering-place.  You  have  no  right,  my  brother,  my 
my  sister — you  have,  no  right  to  take  an  attitude  to  the 
sound  of  music  which  would  be  unbecoming  in  the  ab- 
sence of  music.  No  Chickering  grand  of  city  parlor  or 
fiddle  of  mountain  picnic  can  consecrate  that  which  God 
hath  cursed. 

GATE  OF  INDISCREET  APPAREL. 

Gate  the  third:  Indiscreet  apparel.  The  attire  of  the 
woman  for  the  last  four  or  five  years  has  been  beautiful 
and  graceful  beyond  anything  I    have  known;     but  there 


THE  GATES  OF  HELL.  263 

are  those  who  will  always  carry  that  which  is  right  into 
the  extraordinary  and  indiscreet.  I  am  told  that  there 
is  a  fashion  about  to  come  in  upon  us  that  is  shocking 
to  all  righteousness.  I  charge  Christian  women,  neither 
by  style  of  dress  nor  adjustment  of  apparel,  to  become 
administrative  of  evil. 

Perhaps  none  else  will  dare  to  tell  you,  so  I  will  tell 
you  that  there  are  multitudes  of  men  who  owe  their 
eternal  damnation  to  the  boldness  of  womanly  attire. 
Show  me  the  fashion-plates  of  any  age  between  this  and 
the  time  of  Louis  XVI.,  of  France,  and  Henry  VIII., 
of  England,  and  I  will  tell  you  the  type  of  morals  or  im- 
morals  of  that  age  or  that  year.  No  exception  to  it. 
Modest  apparel  means  a  righteous  people.  Immodest 
apparel  always  means  a  contaminated  and  depraved 
society.  You  wonder  that  the  city  of  Tyre  was  destroy- 
ed with  such  a  terrible  destruction.  Have  you  ever 
seen  the  fashion-plate  of  the  city  of  Tyre?  I  will  show 
it  to  you: 

"Moreover,  the  Lord  saith,  because  the  daughters  of  Zion  are  haughty 
and  walk  with  streched-forth  necks  and  wanton  eyes,  walking  and  mincing 
as  they  go,  and  making  a  tinkling  with  their  feet,  in  that  day  the  Lord 
will  take  away  the  bravery  of  their  tinkling  ornaments  about  their  feet, 
and  their  cauls,  and  their  round  tires  like  the  moon,  the  rings  and  nose 
jewels,  the  changeable  suits  of  apparel,  and  the  mantels,  and  the  wimples, 
and  the  crisping-pins." 

That  is  the  fashion-plate  of  ancient  Tyre.  And  do 
you  wonder  that  the  Lord  God  in  His  indignation  blotted 
out  the  city,  so  that  fishermen  to-day  spread  their  nets 
where  that  city  once  stood. 

GATE  OF  ALCHOLIC  BEVERAGE. 

Gate  the   fourth:    Alcoholic  beverage.        In    our  mid- 


264  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

night  exploration  we  saw  that  all  the  scenes  of  wicked- 
ness were  under  the  enchantment  of  the  wine-cup.  That 
was  what  the  waitress  carried  on  the  platter.  That  was 
what  glowed  on  the  table.  That  was  what  shone  in 
illumined  gardens.  That  was  what  flushed  the  cheeks  of 
the  patrons  who  came  in.  That  was  what  staggered  the 
step  of  the  patrons  as  they  went  out.  Oh!  the  wine-cup 
is  the  patron  of  impurity.  The  officers  of  the  law  that 
night  told  us  that  nearly  all  the  men  who  go  into  the 
shambles  of  death  go  in  intoxicated,  the  mental  and  the 
spiritual  abolished,  that  the  brute  may  trumph.  Tell 
me  that  a  young  man  drinks,  and  I  know  the  whole  story. 
If  he  becomes  a  captive  of  the  wine-cup,  he  will  become 
a  captive  of  all  other  vices;  only  give  him  time.  No  one 
ever  runs  drunkenness  alone.  That  is  a  carrion-crow 
that  goes  in  a  flock,  and  when  you  see  that  beak  ahead, 
you  may  know  the  other  beaks  are  coming.  In  other 
words,  the  wine-cup  unbalances  and  dethrones  one's 
better  judgement,  and  leaves  one  the  prey  of  all  evil  appe- 
tites that  may  choose  to  alight  upon  his  soul. 

There  is  not  a  place  of  any  kind  of  sin  in  the  United 
States  to-day  that  does  not  find  its  chief  abettor  in  the 
chalice  of  inebriacy.  There  is  either  a  drinking- bar  be- 
fore, or  one  behind,  or  one  above,  or  one  underneath. 
The  officers  of  the  law  said  to  me  that  night:  "These 
people  escape  legal  penalty  because  they  are  all  licensed 
to  sell  liquor."  Then  I  said  within  myself,  "The  courts 
that  license  the  sale  of  strong  drink,  license  gambling 
houses,  license  libertinism,  license  disease,  license  death, 
license  all  sufferings,  all  crimes,  all  despoliations,  all 
disasters,  all    murders,  all  woe.      It  is  the  courts  and  the 


THE  LEPERS  OF   HIGH  LIFE.  265 

Legislatures  that  are  swinging  wide  open  these  grinding, 
creaky,  stupendous  gate  of  the  lost." 

But  you  say,  "You  have  described  these  gates  of  hell 
and  shown  us  how  they  swing  in  to  allow  the  entrance 
of  the  doomed.  Will  you  not,  please,  before  you  get 
through  the  sermon,  tell  us  how  these  gates  of  hell  may 
swing  out  to  allow  the  escape  of  the  penitent?" 

I  reply,  but  very  few  escape.  Of  the  thousand  that 
go  in  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  perish.  Suppose  one 
of  these  wanderers  should  knock  at  your  door,  would  you 
admit  her? 

BUT  FEW  DARE  TO  HELP  THESE  FALLEN  SOULS. 

Suppose  you  knew  where  she  came  from,  would  you 
ask  her  to  sit  down  at  your  dining-table? 

Would  you  ask  her  to  become  the  governess  of  your 
children? 

Would  you  introduce  her  among  your  acquaintance- 
ships? 

Would  you  take  the  responsibility  of  pulling  on  the 
outside  of  the  gate  of  hell  while  she  pushed  on  the  inside 
of  that  gate  trying  to  get  out? 

You  would  not,  not  one  of  a  thousand  of  you  that 
would  dare  to  do  it.  You  write  beautiful  poetry  over  her 
sorrows  and  weep  over  her  misfortunes,  but  give  hel 
practical  help  you  never  will. 

There  is  not  one  person  out  of  a  thousand  that 
will — there  is  not  one  out  of  five  thousand  that  has 
come  so  near  the  heart  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  to 
dare  to  help  one  of  these  fallen  souls. 

But  you  say,  '  'Are  there  no  ways  by  which  the  wanderer 
may  escape?" 


266  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

Oh,  yes;  three  or  four.  The  one  way  is  the  sewing- 
girl's  garret,  dingy,  cold,  hunger-blasted. 

But  you  say,  4Ts  there  no  other  way  for  her  to  es- 
cape?" 

THE  SAD  WAYS  FOR  ESCAPE. 

Oh,  yes.  Another  way  is  the  street  that  leads  to  the 
East  River,  at  midnight,  the  end  of  the  city  dock,  the 
moon  shining  down  on  the  water  making  it  look  so 
smooth  she  wonders  if  it  is  deep  enough.  It  is.  No 
boatman  near  enough  to  hear  the  plunge.  No  watchman 
near  enough  to  pick  her  out  before  she  sinks  the  third 
time. 

No  other  way?  Yes.  By  the  curve  of  the  Hudson 
River  Railroad  at  the  point  where  the  engineer  of  the 
lightning  express  train  cannot  see  a  hundred  yards  ahead 
to  the  form  that  lies  across  the  track.  He  may  whistle 
"down  brakes,"  but  not  soon  enough  to  disappoint  the 
one  who  seeks  her  death. 

But  you  say,    "Isn't  God  good,  and  won't  He  forgive?" 

Yes;  but  man  will  not,  woman  will  not,  society  will 
not.  The  church  of  God  says  it  will,  but  it  will  not. 
Our  work,  then,  must  be  prevention  rather  than  cure. 
Standing  here  telling  this  story  to-day,  it  is  no!:  so  much 
in  the  hope  I  will  persuade  one  who  has  dashed  down  a 
thousand  feet  over  the  rocks  to  crawl  up  again  into  life 
and  light,  but  it  is  to  alarm  those  who  are  coming  too 
near  the  edges.  Have  you  ever  listened  to  hear  the 
lamentation  that  rings  up  from  those  far  depths? 

"Once  I  was  pure   as  the  snow,  but  I  feU. 
Fell  like  a  snowflake,  from  heaven  to  hell; 
Fell,  to  be  trampled  as  filth  of  the  street; 
Fell,  to  be  scoffed  at,  be  spit  on,  and  beat. 


THE  LEPERS  OF   HIGH  LIFE.  267 

Pleading,  cursing,  begging  to  die, 
Selling  my  soul  to  whoever  would  buy; 
Dealing  in  shame  for  a   morsel  of  bread, 
Hating  the  living  and  fearing  the  dead." 

Bat  you  say,        "What  can  be  the  practical  use  of  this 
course  of  sermons?" 

I  say,  much  everywhere.  I  am  greatly  obliged  to  those 
gentleman  of  the  press  who  have  fairly  reported  what  I 
have  said  on  these  occasions,  and  the  press  of  this  city 
and  New  York,  and  of  the  other  prominent  cities.  I 
thank  you  for  the  almost  universal  fairness  with  which 
you  have  presented  what  I  have  had  to  say.  Of  course, 
among  the  educated  and  refined  journalists  who  sit  at 
these  tables,  and  have  been  sitting  here  for  four  or  five 
years,  there  will  be  a  fool  or  two  that  does  not  under- 
stand his  business,  but  that  ought  not  to  discredit  the 
grand  newspaper  printing-press.  I  thank  also,  those  who 
have  by  letters  cheered  me  in  this  work — letters  coming 
from  all  parts  of  the  land,  from  Christian  reformers  tell- 
ing me  to  go  on  in  the  work  which  I  have  undertaken. 
Never  so  many  letters  in  my  life  have  I  received.  Per- 
haps one  out  of  the  hundred  condemnatory,  as  one  I  got 
yesterday  from  a  man  who  said  he  thought  my  sermons 
would  do  great  damage  in  the  fact  that  they  would  arouse 
the  suspicion  of  domestic  circles  as  to  where  the  head  of 
the  family  was  spending  his  evenings!  I  was  sorry  it 
was  an  anonymous  letter,  for  I  should  have  written  to 
that  man's  wife  telling  her  to  put  a  detective  on  her  hus- 
band's track,  for  I  knew  right  away  he  was  going  to  bad 
places! 

My  friends,  you  say,    "It  is  not  possible  to  do  anything 


268  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

with  these  stalwart  iniquities;  you  cannot  wrestle  them 
down." 

Stupid  man,  read  my  text:  "The  gates  of  hell  shall 
not  prevail  against  the  church."  Those  gates  of  hell  are 
to  be  prostrated  just  as  certainly  as  God  and  the  Bible 
are  true,  but  it  will  not  be  done  until  Christian  men  and 
women,  quitting  their  prudery  and  squeamishness  in  this 
matter,  rally  the  whole  Christian  sentiment  of  the  church 
and  assail  these  great  evils  of  society.  The  Bible  utters 
its  denunciation  in  this  direction  again  and  again,  and 
yet  the  piety  of  the  day  is  such  a  namby-pamby,  emetic 
sort  of  a  thing  that  you  cannot  even  quote  Scripture  with- 
out making  somebody  restless.  As  long  as  this  holy  im- 
becility reigns  in  the  church  of  God,  sin  will  laugh  you  to 
scorn. 

I  do  not  know  but  that  before  the  church  wakes  up 
matters  will  grow  worse  and  worse,  and  that  there  will 
have  to  be  one  lamb  sacrificed  from  each  of  the  most 
carefully-guarded  folds,  and  the  wave  of  uncleanness 
dash  to  the  spire  of  the  villiage  church  and  the  top  of 
the  cathedral  pillar.  Prophets  and  patriachs,  and  apostles 
and  evangelists,  and  Christ  himself  have  thundered 
against  these  sins  as  against  no  other,  and  yet  there  are 
those  who  think  we  ought  to  take,  when  we  speak  of  these 
subjects,  a  tone  apologetic.  I  put  my  foot  on  all  the 
conventional  rhetoric  on  this  subject,  and  I  tell  you 
plainly  that  unless  you  give  up  that  sin  your  doom  is 
sealed,  and  world  without  end  you  will  be  chased  by  the 
anathemas  of  an  incensed  God.  I  rally  you  under  the 
cheertul  prophecy  of  the  text;  I  rally  you  to  a  besiege- 
ment  of  the  gates  of  hell. 


THE  LEPERS    OF  HIGH  LIFE  269 

We  want  in  this  besieging  host  no  soft  sentimentalists, 
but  men  who  are  willing  to  give  and  take  hard  knocks. 
The  gates  of  Gaza  were  carried  off,  the  gates  of  Thebes 
were  battered  down,  the  gates  of  Babylon  were  destroy- 
ed, and  the  gates  of  hell  are  going  to  be  prostrated. 

The  Christianized  printing-press  will  be  rolled  up  as 
the  chief  battering-ram.  Then  there  will  be  a  long  list 
of  aroused  pulpits,  which  shall  be  assailed  fortresses,  and 
God's  red-hot  truth  shall  be  the  flying  ammunition  of  the 
contest;  and  the  Sappers  and  the  miners  will  lay  the 
train  under  these  foundations  of  sin,  and  at  just  the 
right  time  God,  who  leads  on  the  fray,  will  call,  "Down 
with  the  gates!"  and  the  explosion  beneath  will  be 
answered  by  all  the  trumpets  of  God  on  high  celebrating 
universal  victory.  But  there  may  be  in  this  house  one 
wanderer  that  would  like  to  have  a  kind  word  calling 
homeward,  and  I  cannot  sit  down  until  I  have  uttered 
that  word.  .1  have  told  you  that  society  has  no  mercy. 
Did  I  hint,  at  an  earlier  point  in  this  subject,  that  God 
will  have  mercy  upon  any  wanderer  who  would  like  to 
come  back  to  the  heart  of  infinite  love? 

A  cold  Christmas  night  in  a  farm-house.  Father 
comes  in  from  the  barn,  knocks  the  snow  from  his  shoes, 
and  sits  down  by  the  Are.  The  mother  sits  at  the  stand 
knitting.      She  says  to  him: 

"Do  you  remember  it  is  anniversary  to-night?" 

The  father  is  angered.  He  never  wants  any  allusion 
to  the  fact  that  one  has  gone  away,  and  the  mere  sug- 
gestion that  it  was  the  anniversary  of  that  sad  event  made 
him  quite  rough,  although  the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks. 
The    old  house-dog    that    had  played    with  the  wanderer 


27O  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

when  she  was  a  child,  came  up  and  put  his  head  on  the 
old  man's  knee,  but  he  roughly  repulsed  the  dog.  He 
wants  nothing   to  remind  him    of  the    anniversary  day. 

THE  STORY  ABOUT   "MEG." 

The  following  incident  was  told  me.  It  was  a  cold 
winter  night  in  a  city  church.  It  is  Christmas  night. 
They  have  been  decorating  the  sanctuary.  A  lost  wan- 
derer of  the  street,  with  thin  shawl  about  her,  attracted 
by  the  warmth  and  light,  comes  in  and  sits  near  the  door. 
The  minister  of  religion  is  preaching  of  Him  who  was 
wounded  for  our  transgressions,  and  bruised  for  our  in- 
iquities, and  the  poor  soul  by  the  door  said: 

"Why,  that  must  mean  me;  mercy  for  the  chief  of 
sinners;  bruised  for  our  iniquities;  wounded  for  our  trans- 
gressions." The  music  that  night  in  the  sanctuary 
brought  back  the  old  hymn  which  she  used  to  sing  when 
with  father  and  mother  she  worshiped  God  in  the  village 
church.  The  service  over,  the  minister  went  down  the 
aisle.      She  said  to  him: 

"Were  those  words  for  me?  'Wounded  for  our  trans- 
gressions.'    Was  that  for  me?" 

The  man  of  God  understood  her  not.  He  knew  not 
how  to  comfort  a  shipwrecked  soul,  and  he  passed  on  and 
he  passed  out.  The  poor  wanderer  followed  into  the 
street. 

"What  are  you  doing  here,  Meg?"  said  the  police. 
"What  are  you  doing  here  to-night?" 

"Oh!"  she  replied,  "I  was  in  to  warm  myself;"  and 
the  rattling  cough  came,  and  she  held  to  the  railing  until 
the  paroxysm  was  over.  She  passed  on  down  the  street, 
falling  from  exhaustion;    recovering  herself  again,    until 


THE  LEPERS  OF   HIGH  LIFE.  2J\ 

after  a  while  she  reached  the  outskirts  of  the  city  and 
passed  on  into  the  country  road.  It  seemed  so  familiar, 
she  kept  on  the  road,  and  she  saw  in  the  distance  a  light 
in  the  window.  Ah!  that  light  had  been  gleaming  there 
every  night  since  she  went  away.  On  that  country  road 
she  passed  until  she  came  to  the  garden  gate.  She 
opened  it  and  passed  up  the  path  where  she  played  in 
childhood.  She  came  to  the  steps  and  looked  in  at  the 
fire  on  the  hearth.  Then  she  put  her  fingers  to  the  latch. 
Oh!  if  that  door  had  been  locked  she  would  have  perished 
on  the  threshold,  for  she  was  near  to  death.  But  that 
door  had  not  been  locked  since  the  time  she  went  away. 
She  pushed  open  the  door.  She  went  in  and  laid  down 
on  the  hearth  by  the  fire.  The  old  house-dog  growled 
as  he  saw  her  enter,  but  there  was  something  in  the  voice 
he  recognized,  and  he  frisked  about  her  until  he  almost 
pushed  her  down  in  his  joy.  In  the  morning  the  mother 
came  down,  and  she  saw  a  bundle  of  rags  on  the  hearth; 
but  when  the  face  was  uplifted,  she  knew  it,  and  it  was 
no  more  old  Meg  of  the  street.  Throwing  her  arms 
around  the  returned  prodigal,  she  cried, 

"Oh!  Maggie." 

The  child  threw  her  arms  around  her  mother's  neck, 
and  said:  "Oh!  Mother,"  and  while  they  were  embraced 
a  rugged  form  towered  above  them.  It  was  the  father. 
The  severity  all  gone  out  of  his  face,  he  stooped  and  took 
her  up  tenderly  and  carried  her  to  mother's  room,  and 
laid  her  down  on  mother's  bed,  for  she  was  dying.  Then 
the  lost  one,  looking  up  into  her  mother's  face,  said: 

'•'Wounded  for  our  transgressions  and  bruised  for   our 
iniquities!"     Mother,  do  you  think  that  means  me?" 


272  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

'•Oh,  yes,  my  darling,"  said  the  mother,  '  'if  mother 
is  so  glad  to  get  you  back,  don't  you  think  God  is  glad  to 
get  }ou  back?" 

And  there  she  lay  dying,  and  all  her  dreams  and  all 
her  prayers  were  filled  with  the  words,  "Wounded  for 
our  transgressions,  bruised  for  our  iniquities,"  until  just 
before  the  moment  of  her  departure,  her  face  lighted 
up  showing  that  the  pardon  of  God  had  dropped  upon 
her  soul. 

And  there  she  slept  away  on  the  bosom  of  a  pardoning 
Jesus.  So  the  Lord  took  back  one  whom  the  world  re- 
jected. 


WHOM  I  SAW  AND  WHOM  I  MISSED. 


'And  the  vale  of  Siddim   was  full  of  slime-pits," — Genesis  xiv,  10. 

.bout  six  months  ago,  a  gentleman  in  Augusta, 
Georgia,  wrote  me  asking  me  to  preach  from  this 
.text,  and  the  time  has  come  for  the  subject.  The 
neck  of  an  army  had  been  broked  by  falling  into  these 
half-hidden  slime-pits.  How  deep  they  were,  or  how 
vile,  or  how  hard  to  get  out  of,  we  are  not  told;  but  the 
whole  scene  is  so  far  distant  in  the  past  that  we  have 
not  half  as  much  interest  in  this  statement  of  the  text  as 
we  have  in  the  announcement  that  our  American  cities 
are  full  of  slime-pits,  and  tens  of  thousands  of  people 
are  falling  in  them  night  by  night. 

WHY    I    EXPLORED    THE    SLIME-PITTS. 

Recently,  in  the  name  of  God,  I  explored  some  of 
these  slime-pits.  Why  did  I  do  so?  In  April  last,  seat- 
ed in  the  editorial  rooms  of  one  of  the  chief  daily  news- 
papers of  New  York,  the  editor  said  to  me: 

1  'Mr.  Talmage,  you  clergymen  are  at  a  great  disad- 
vantage when  you  come  to  battle  iniquity,  for  you  don't 
know  what  you  are  talking  about,  and  we  laymen  are 
aware  of  the  fact  that  you  don't  know  of  what  you  are 
talking;  now,  if  you  would  like  to  make  a  personal  in- 
vestigation, I  will  see  that  you  shall  get  the  highest  offi- 
cial escort." 

I  thanked  him,  accepted  the  invitation,  and  told  him 
that  this  autumn  I  would  begin  the  tour. 

The  fact  was  that  I  had  for  a  long  time  wanted  to  say 

[273] 


274  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES. 

some  words  of  warning  and  invitation  to  the  young  men 
of  this  country,  and  I  felt  if  my  course  of  sermons  was 
preceded  by  a  tour  of  this  sort  I  should  not  only  be  bet- 
ter acquainted  with  the  subject,  but  I  should  have  the 
whole  country  for  an  audience;  and  it  has  been  a  delib- 
erate plan  of  my  ministry,  whenever  I  am  going  to  try 
to  do  anything  especial  for  God,  or  humanity,  or  the 
church,  to  do  it  in  such  a  way  that  the  devil  will  always 
advertise  it  free  gratis  for  nothing!  That  was  the  reason 
I  gave  two  weeks'  previous  notice  of  my  pulpit  intentions. 
The  result  has  been  satisfactory. 

I  SAW  BANKERS,    BROKERS,    AND   MERCHANTS     AND  MEN 
OF  LEISURE  THERE,  BUT  NOT  THE  WORKING  MEN! 

Standing  within  those  purlieus  of  death,  under  the 
command  of  the  police  and  in  their  company,  I  was  as 
much  surprised  at  the  people  whom  I  missed  as  at  the 
people  whom  I  saw.  I  saw  bankers  there,  and  brokers 
there,  and  merchants  there,  and  men  of  all  classes  and 
occupations  who  have  leisure,  there;  but  there  was  one 
class  of  persons  that  I  missed.  I  looked  for  them  all  up 
and  down  the  galleries,  and  amid  the  illumined  gardens, 
and  all  up  and  down  the  staircases  of  death.  I  saw  not 
one  of  them.  I  mean  the  hard-working  classes,  the 
laboring  classes,  of  our  great  cities.  You  tell  me  they 
could  not  afford  to  go  there.  They  could.  Entrance, 
twenty-five  cents.  They  could  have  gone  there  if  they 
had  a  mind  to;  but  the  simple  fact  is  that  hard  work  is  a 
friend  to  good  morals.  The  men  who  toil  from  early 
morn  until  late  at  night  when  they  go  home  are  tired 
out,  and  want  to  sit  down  and  rest,  or  to  saunter  out 
with  their  families   along  the  street,  or  to  pass  into  some 


WHOM  I  SAW  AND     WHOM  I  MISSED.  275 

quiet  place  of  amusement  where  they  will  not  be  ashamed 
to  take  wife  and  daughter.  The  busy  population  of 
these  cities  are  the  moral  populations. 

I  observed  on  the  night  of  our  exploration  that  the 
places  of  dissipation  are  chiefly  supported  by  the  men 
who  go  to  business  at  nine  and  ten  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing and  get  through  at  three  and  four  in  the  afternoon. 
They  have  plenty  of  time  to  go  to  destruction  in,  and 
plenty  of  money  to  buy  a  through  ticket  on  the  Grand 
Trunk  Railroad  to  perdition,  stopping  at  no  depot  until 
they  get  to  the  eternal  smash-up!  Those  are  the  fortu- 
nate and  divinely-blessed  young  men  who  have  to  break- 
fast early  and  take  supper  late,  and  have  the  entire  in- 
terregnum filled  up  with  work  that  blisters  the  hands,  and 
makes  the  legs  ache  and  the  brain  weary. 

A  SLIM  CHANCE  FOR  THE  YOUNG  MAN  OF  LEISURE. 

There  is  no  chance  for  the  morals  of  that  young  man 
who  has  plenty  of  money  and  no  occupation.  You  may 
go  from  Central  Park  to  the  Battery,  or  you  may  go  from 
Fulton  Steeet  Ferry,  Brooklyn,  or  to  South  Bushwick, 
or  out  to  Hunter's  Point,  or  out  to  Gowanus,  and  you 
will  not  find  one  young  man  of  that  kind  who  has  not  al- 
ready achieved  his  ruin,  or  who  is  not  on  the  way  thereto 
at  the  rate  of  sixty  miles  the  hour.  Those  are  not  the 
favored  and  divinely-blessed  young  men  who  come  and 
go  as  they  will,  and  who  have  their  pocket-case  full  of 
the  best  cigars,  and  who  dine  at  Delmonico's,  and  who 
dress  in  the  tip-top  of  fashion,  their  garments  a  little 
tighter  or  looser  or  broader  striped  than  others,  their 
mustaches  twisted  with  stiffer  cosmetic,  and  their  hair 
redolent  with    costly   pomatum,  and   have  their   hat  set 


2j6  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES. 

farthest  over  on  the  right  ear,  and  who  have  boots  fitting 
the  foot  with  exquisite  torture,  and  who  have  handker- 
chiefs soaked  with  musk,  and  patchouli,  and  white  rose, 
and  new-mown  hay,  and  "balm  of  a  thousand  flowers;" 
but  those  are  the  fortunate  young  men  who  have  to  work 
hard  for  a  living. 

Give  a  young  man  plenty  of  wines,  and  plenty  of  cigars 
and  plenty  of  fine  horses,  and  Satan  has  no  anxiety  about 
that  man's  coming  out  at  his  place.  He  ceases  to  watch 
him,  only  giving  directions  about  his  reception  when  he 
shall  arive  at  the  end  of  the  journey.  If,  on  the  night 
of  our  exploration,  I  had  called  the  roll  of  all  the  labor- 
ing men  of  these  cities,  I  would  have  received  no  answer, 
for  the  simple  reason  they  were  not  there  to  answer.  I 
was  not  more  surprised  at  the  people  whom  I  saw  there 
than  I  was  surprised  at  the  people  whom  I  missed.  Oh! 
man,  if  you  have  an  occupation  by  which  you  are  wearied 
every  night  of  your  life,  thank  God,  for  it  is  the  mightiest 
preservative  against  evil. 

MIDNIGHT  IN    NEW  YORK. 

But  by  that  time  the  clock  of  old  Trinity  Church  was 
striking  one,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six,  seven,  eight,  nine, 
ten,  eleven,  twelve — midnight!  And  with  the  police 
and  two  elders  of  my  church  we  sat  down  at  the  table  in 
the  galleries  and  looked  off  upon  the  vortex  of  death. 
The  music  in  full  blast;  the  dance  in  wildest  whirl;  the 
wine  foaming  to  the  lip  of  the  glass  Midnight  on  earth 
is  midnoon  in  hell.  All  the  demons  of  the  pit  were  at 
that  moment  holding  high  carnival.  The  blue  calcium 
light  suggested  the  burning  brimstone  of  the  pit.  Seated 
there,    at  that    hour,  in    that  awful  place,    you  ask    me, 


WHOM  I  SAW  AND    WHOM  I  MISSED.  2J7 

as  I  have  frequently  been  asked,  "What  were  the 
emotions  that  went  through  your  heart?"  And  I  shah1 
give  the  rest  of  my  morning's  sermon  to  telling  you  how 
I  felt. 

HOW  I  FELT  WHILE  THERE. 

First  of  all,  as  at  no  death-bed  or  railroad  disaster  did 
I  feel  an  overwhelming  sense  of  pity.  Why  were  we 
there  as  Christian  explorers,  while  those  lost  souls  were 
there  as  participators?  If  they  had  enjoyed  the  same 
healthful  and  Chrtstian  surroundings  which  we  have  had 
all  our  days,  and  we  had  been  thrown  amid  the  contam- 
inations which  have  destroyed  them,  the  case  would  have 
been  the  reverse,  and  they  would  have  been  the  specta- 
tors and  we  the  actors  in  that  awful  tragedy  of  the 
damned. 

As  I  sat  there  I  could  not  keep  back  the  tears — tears  of 
gratitude  to  God  for  his  protecting  grace — tears  of  com- 
passion for  those  who  have  fallen  so  low.  The  difference 
in  moral  navigation  has  been  the  difference  in  the  way 
the  wind  blew.  The  wind  of  temptation  drove  them  on 
the  rocks.  The  wind  of  God's  mercy  drove  us  out  on  a 
fair  sea. 

There  are  men  and  women  so  merciless  in  their  criti- 
cism of  the  fallen  that  you  might  think  that  God  had 
made  them  in  an  especial  mold,  and  that  they  have  no 
capacity  for  evil,  and  yet  if  they  had  been  subjected  to 
the  same  allurements,  instead  of  stopping  at  the  up-town 
haunts  of  iniquity,  they  would  at  this  hour  been  wallow- 
ing amid  the  horrors  of  Arch  Block,  or  shrieking  with 
delirium  tremens  in  the  cell  of  a  police  station.  Instead 
of  boasting  over  your   purity  and  your  integrity  and  your 


278  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

sobriet},  you  had  better  be  thanking  God  for  his  grace, 
lest  some  time  the  Lord  would  let  you  loose  and  you 
find  out  how  much  better  you  are  than  others  naturally. 
I  will  take  the  best-tempered  man  in  this  house,  the 
most  honest  man  in  this  city,  and  I  will  venture  the 
opinion  in  regard  to  him  that,  surround  him  with  all  the 
adequate  circumstance  of  temptation,  and  the  Lord  let 
him  loose,  he  would  become  a  thief,  a  gambler,  a  sot,  a 
rake,  a  wharf-rat.  Instead  of  boasting  over  our  superior- 
ity, and  over  the  fact  that  there  is  no  capacity  in  us  of 
evil,  I  would  rather  have  for  my  epitaph  that  one  word 
which  Duncan  Matthewson,  the  Scotch  evangelist,  or- 
dered chisled  on  his  tombstone,  the  name,  and  the  one 
word,   "Kept." 

I  THOUGHT  OF  THE  YOUNG  MAN'S  MOTHER. 

Again:  Seated  in  that  gallery  of  death,  and  looking 
out  on  that  maelstrom  of  iniquity,  I  thought  to  myself, 
"There!  that  young  man  was  once  the  pride  of  the  city 
home.  Paternal  care  watched  him;  maternal  love  bent 
over  him;  sisterly  affection  surrounded  him.  He  was 
once  taken  to  the  altar  and  consecrated  in  the  name  of 
the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  but 
he  went  away.  This  very  moment,"  I  thought  to  my- 
self, '  'there  are  hearts  aching  for  that  young  man's  re- 
turn. Father  and  mother  are  sitting  up  for  him."  You 
say,  "He  has  a  night-key,  and  he  comes  in  without  their 
help.  Why  do  not  those  parents  go  sound  to  sleep?" 
What!  Is  there  any  sleep  for  parents  who  suspect  a 
son  is  drifting  up  and  down  amid  the  dissipations  of  a 
great  city?  They  may  weep,  they  may  pray,  they  may 
wring  their  hands,  but  sleep  they  cannot.     Ah!  they  have 


WHOM  I  SAW  AND    WHOM  I  MISSED.  279 

done  and  suffered  too  much  for  that^boy  to  give  him  up 
now.  They  turn  up  the  light  and  look  at  the  photograph 
of  him  when  he  was  young  and  untempted.  They  stand 
at  the  window  to  see  if  he  is  coming  up  the  street.  They 
hear  the  watchman's  rattle,  but  no  sound  of  returning 
boy. 

WHY  I  DID  NOT   WARN  HIM  THEN. 

I  felt  that  night  as  if  I  could  put  my  hand  on  the 
shoulder  of  that  young  man,  and,  with  a  voice  that  would 
sound  all  through  those  temples  of  sin,  say  to  him,  "Go 
home,  young  man;  your  father  is  waiting  for  you.  Your 
mother  is  waiting  for  you.  God  is  waiting  for  you.  All 
heaven  is  waiting  for  you.  Go  home!  By  the  tears 
wept  over  your  waywardness,  by  the  prayers  offered  for 
your  salvation,  by  the  midnight  watching  over  you  when 
you  had  scarlet  fever  and  diphtheria,  by  the  blood  of  the 
Son  of  God,  by  the  judgement  day  when  you  must  give 
answer  for  what  you  have  been  doing  here  to-night,  go 
home!"  But  I  did  not  say  this,  lest  it  interfere  with  my 
work,  and  I  waited  to  get  on  this  platform,  where,  per- 
haps, instead  of  saving  one  young  man,  God  helping  me, 
I  might  save  a  thousand  young  men;  and  the  cry  of  alarm 
which  1  suppressed  that  night,  I  let  loose  to-day  in  the 
hearing  of  this  people. 

Seated  in  that  gallery  of  death,  and  looking  off  upon 
the  destruction,  I  bethought  myself  also,  "These  are 
the  fragments  of  broken  homes,"  A  home  is  a  com- 
plete thing,  and  if  one  member  of  it  wander  off,  then 
the  home  is  broken.  And  sitting  there,  I  said:  "Here 
they  are,  broken  family  altars,  broken  wedding-rings, 
broken     vows,     broken    anticipations,     broken    hearts." 


2  8o  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

And,  as  I  looked  off,  the  dance  became  wilder  and  more 
unrestrained,  until  it  seemed  as  if  the  floor  broke  through 
and  the  revelers  were  plunged  into  a  depth  from  which 
they  may  never  rise,  and  all  these  broken  families  came 
around  the  brink  and  seemed  to  cry  out: 

1  'Come  back,  father!  Comeback,  mother!  Come  back, 
my  son!  Come  back,  my  daughter!  Come  back,  my 
sister!" 

But  no  voices  returned,  and  the  sound  of  the  feet  of 
the  dancers  grew  fainter  and  fainter,  and  stopped,  and 
there  was  thick  darkness. 

And  I  said,    "What  does  all  this  mean?" 

And  there  came  up  a  great  hiss  of  whispering  voices, 
saying.    "This  is  the  second  death!" 

But  seated  there  that  night,  looking  off  upon  that 
scene  of  death,  I  bethought  myself  also  "This  is  only  a 
miserable  copy  of  European  dissipations."  In  London 
they  have  what  they  call  the  Argyle,  the  Cremorne,  the 
Strand,  the  beer-gardens,  and  a  thousand  places  of 
infamy,  and  it  seems  to  be  the  ambition  of  bad  people  in 
this  country  to  copy  those  foreign  dissipations.  Toady- 
ism when  it  bows  to  foreign  pretense  and  to  foreign 
equipage  and  to  foreign  title  is  despicable;  but  toadyism 
is  more  despicable  when  it  bows  to  foreign  vice.  Why, 
you  might  as  well  steal  the  pillow-case  of  a  small-pox 
hospital,  or  the  shovels  of  a  scavenger's  cart,  or  the  coffin 
of  a  leper,  as  to  make  theft  of  these  foreign  plagues.  If 
you  want  to  destroy  the  people,  have  some  originality 
of  destruction;  have  an  American  trap  to  catch  the  bodies 
and  souls  of  men,  instead  of  infringing  on  the  patented 
inventions  of  European  iniquity. 


WHOM  I    SAW  AND  WHOM  I  MISSED.  28  I 

Seated  there  that  night,  I  also  felt  that  if  the  good 
people  of  our  cities  knew  what  was  going  on  in  these 
haunts  of  iniquity,  they  would  endure  it  no  longer.  The 
foundations  of  city  life  are  rotten  with  iniquity,  and  if 
the  foundations  give  way  the  whole  structure  must 
crumble. 

FUTURE   DANGERS. 

If  iniquity  progresses  in  the  next  one  hundred  years  in 
the  same  ratio  that  it  has  progressed  in  the  century  now 
closing,  there  will  not  be  a  vestige  of  moral  or  religious 
influence  left.  It  is  only  a  question  of  subtraction  and 
addition.  If  the  people  knew  how  the  virus  was  spread- 
ing they  would  stop  it.  I  think  the  time  has  come  for 
action.  I  wish  that  the  next  Mayor  of  New  York  whether 
he  be  Augustus  Schell  or  Edward  Cooper,  may  rise  up 
to  the  height  of  this  position.  Revolution  is  what  we 
want,  and  that  revolution  would  begin  to-morrow  if  the 
moral  and  Christian  people  of  our  cities  knew  of  the  fires 
that  slumber  beneath  them.  Once  in  a  while  a  glorious 
missionary  or  reformer  like  Mr.  Brace  or  Mr.  Van  Meter 
tells  to  a  well-dressed  audience  in  church  the  troubles 
that  lie  under  our  roaring  metropolis,  and  the  conven- 
tional church-goer  gives  his  five  dollars  for  bread,  or  gives 
his  fifty  dollars  to  help  support  a  ragged  school,  and  then 
goes  home  feeling  that  the  work  is  done.  Oh!  my  friends, 
the  work  will  not  be  accomplished  until  by  the  force  of 
public  opinion  the  officers  of  the  law  shall  be  compelled 
to  execute  the  law. 

We  are  told  that  the  twenty-five  hundred  police  of 
New  York  cannot  put  down  the  five  or  six  hundred  dens 
of  infamy,  to  say  nothing  of  the  gambiing-houses  and  the 


282  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

unlicensed  grog-shops.  I  reply,  swear  me  in  as  a  special 
police  and  give  me  two  hundred  police  for  two  nights, 
and  I  would  break  up  all  the  leading  haunts  of  iniquity 
in  these  two  cities,  and  arrest  all  their  leaders  and  send 
such  consternation  in  the  smaller  places  that  they  would 
shut  up  of  themselves!  I  do  not  think  I  should  be  afraid 
of  lawsuits  for  damages  for  false  imprisonment.  What 
we  want  in  these  cities  is  a  Stonewall  Jackson's  raid 
through  all  the  places  of  iniquity.  I  was  persuaded  by 
what  I  saw  on  that  night  of  my  exploration  that  the 
keepers  of  all  these  haunts,  of  iniquity  are  as  afraid  as  they 
are  of  death  of  the  police  star,  and  the  police  club,  and 
the  police  revolver.  Hence,  I  declare  that  the  existence 
of  these  abominations  are  to  be  charged  either  to  police 
cowardice  or  to  police  complicity. 

At  the  close  of  our  journey  that  night,  we  got  in  the 
carriage,  and  we  came  out  on  Broadway,  and  as  we  came 
down  the  street  everything  seemed  silent  save  the  clatter- 
ing hoofs  and  the  wheels  of  our  own  conveyance.  Look- 
ing down  the  long  line  of  gaslights,  the  pavement  seemed 
very  solitary.  The  great  sea  of  metropolitan  life  had 
ebbed,  leaving  a  dry  beach!  New  York  asleep!  No!  no! 
Burglary  wide  awake.  Libertinism  wide  awake.  Mur- 
der wide  awake.  Ten  thousand  city  iniquities  wide 
awake.  The  click  of  the  decanters  in  the  worst  hours  of 
the  debauch.  The  harvest  of  death  full.  Eternal  woe 
the  reaper. 

"GOOD  NIGHT?"    NO?    BLACK    NIGHT. 

What  is  that?  Trinity  clock  striking,  one — two. 
"Good  night,"  said  the  officers  of  the  law,  and  I  respond- 
ed "good  night,"  for  they  had  been  very    kind,  and  very 


WHOM  I  SAW  AND  WHOM    I  MISSED.  283 

generous  and  very  helpful  to  us.  "Good  night."  And 
yet,  was  there  ever  an  adjetive  more  misapplied?  Good 
night!  Why,  there  was  no  expletive  enough  scarred  and 
blasted  to  describe  that  night.  Black  night.  Forsaken 
night.  Night  of  man's  wickedness  and  woman's  over- 
throw. Night  of  awful  neglect  on  the  part  of  those  who 
might  help  but  do  not.  For  many  of  those  whom  we 
had  been  watching,  everlasting  night.  No  hope.  No 
rescue.  No  God.  Black  night  of  darkness  forever.  As 
far  off  as  hell  is  from  heaven  was  that  night  distant  from 
being  a  good  night.  Oh,  my  friends,  what  are  you  going 
to  do  in  this  matter?  Punish  the  people?  That  is  not 
my  theory.  Prevent  the  people,  warn  the  people,  hinder 
the  people  before  they  go  down.  The  first  philanthropist 
this  country  ever  knew  was  Edward  Livingstone,  and  he 
wrote  these  remarkable  words  in  1833: 

"As  prevention  in  the  diseases  of  the  body  is  less  painful,  less  expen- 
sive, and  more  efficacious  than  the  most  skillful  cure,  so  in  the  moral 
maladies  of  society,  to  arrest  the  vicious  before  the  profligacy  assumes  the 
shape  of  crime,  to  take  away  from  the  poor  the  cause  or  pretense  of  re- 
lieving themselves  by  fraud  or  theft,  to  reform  them  by  education,  and 
make  their  own  industry  contribute  to  their  support,  although  difficult 
and  expensive,  will  be  found  more  effectual  in  the  suppression  of  of- 
fenses, and  more  economical,  than  the  best  organized  system  of  punish- 
ment." 

Next  Sabbath  morning  I  shall  tell  you  of  my  second 
night  of  exploration.  I  have  only  opened  the  door  of 
this  great  subject  with  which  I  hope  to  stir  the  cities. 
I  have  begun,  and,  God  helping  me,  I  will  go  through. 
Whoever  else  may  be  crowded  or  kept  standing,  or  kept 
outside  the  doors,  I  charge  the  trustees  and  the  ushers 
of  this  church  that  they  give  full  elbow-room  to  all  these 


284  EVILS   OF  THE    CITIES. 

journalists,  since  each  one  is  another  church  five  times, 
or  ten  times,  or  twenty  times  larger  than  this  august 
assemblage,  and  it  is  by  the  printing-press  that  the  Gos- 
pel of  the  Son  of  God  is  to  be  yet  preached  to  all  the 
world.  May  the  blessing  of  the  Lord  God  come  down 
upon  all  the  editors,  and  all  the  reporters,  and  all  the 
compositors,  and  all  the  proof-readers,  and  all  the  type- 
setters! 

YOU  MAY  BECOME  A  GOOD  MAN COME  BACK. 

But,  my  friends,  before  the  iniquities  of  our  cities  are 
closed,  my  tongue  may  be  silent  in  death,  and  many 
who  are  here  this  morning  may  have  gone  so  far  in  sin 
they  cannot  get  back.  You  have  sometimes  been  walk- 
ing on  the  banks  of  a  river,  and  you  have  seen  a  man 
struggling  in  the  water,  and  you  have  thrown  off  your 
coat  and  leaped  in  for  the  rescue.  So  this  morning  I 
throw  off  the  robe  of  pulpit  conventionality,  and  I  plunge 
in  for  your  drowning  soul.  I  have  no  cross  words  for 
you.  I  have  only  cross  words  for  those  that  would  de- 
stroy you.  I  am  glad  God  has  not  put  in  my  hand  any 
one  of  the  thunderbolts  of  His  power,  lest  I  might  be 
tempted  to  hurl  it  at  those  who  are  plotting  your  ruin. 
I  do  not  give  you  the  tip  end  of  the  long  fingers  of  the 
left  hand,  but  I  take  your  hand,  hot  with  the  fever  of  in- 
dulgences and  trembling  with  last  night's  debauch,  into 
both  my  hands,  and  give  the  heartiest  grip  of  invitation 
and  welcome. 

"Oh,"  you  say,  "you  would  not  shake  hands  with  me 
if  you  met  me." 

I  would.  Try  me  at  the  foot  of  this  platform  and  see 
if  I  will  not.        I  have    sometimes  said  that  I  would  like 


WHOM  I  SAW  AND    WHOM  I    MISSED.  285 

to  die  with  my  hand  in  the  hand  of  my  family  and  my 
kindred;  but  I  revoke  that  wish  this  morning  and  say 
that  I  would  like  to  die  with  my  hand  in  the  hand  of  a 
returning  sinner,  when,  with  God's  help,  I  am  trying  to 
pull  him  up  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  Gospel.  I 
would  like  that  to  be  my  last  work  on  earth.  Oh!  my 
brother,  come  back! 

I  TAKE  YOU  BY  THE  HAND. 

Do  you  know  that  God  made  Richard  Baxters  and 
John  Bunyans  and  Robert  Newtons  out  of  such  as  you 
are?  Come  back!  and  wash  in  the  deep  fountain  of  a 
Savior's  mercy.  I  do  not  give  you  a  cup,  or  a  chalice, 
or  a  pitcher  with  a  limited  supply,  to  effect  your  ablu- 
tions. I  point  you  to  the  five  oceans  of  God's  mercy. 
Oh!  that  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  surges  of  divine  for- 
giveness might  roll  over  your  soul. 

I  do  not  say  to  you,  as  we  said  to  the  officers  of  the 
law  when  we  left  them  on  Broadway,  "Good  night." 
Oh,  no.  But,  as  the  glorious  sun  of  God's  forgiveness 
rides  on  toward  the  mid  heavens,  ready  to  submerge  you 
in  warmth  and  light  and  love,  I  bid  you  good  morning! 
Morning  of  peace  for  all  your  troubles.  Morning  of 
liberation  for  all  your  incarcerations.  Morning  of  resur- 
rection for  your  soul  buried  in  sin.  Good  morning! 
Morning  for  the  resuscitated  household  that  has  been 
waiting  for  your  return.  Morning  for  the  cradle  and  the 
crib  already  disgraced  with  being  that  of  a  drunkard's 
child.  Morning  for  the  daughter  that  has  trunged  off  to 
hard  work  because  you  did  not  take  care  of  home.  Morn- 
ing for  the  wife  who  at  forty  or  fifty  years  has  the 
wrinkled    face,  and  the    stooped  shoulder,  and  the  white 


286  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES 

hair.      Morning  for  one.      Morning  for  all.      Good  morn- 
ing!    In  God's  name,  good  morning. 

A  PLEASING  WAR  INCIDENT. 

In  our  last  dreadful  war  the  Federals  and  the  Con- 
federates were  encamped  on  opposite  sides  of  the  Rappa- 
hannock, and  one  morning  the  brass  band  of  the  North- 
ern troops  played  the  national  air,  and  all  the  Northern 
troops  cheered  and  cheered.  Then  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  Rappahannock  the  brass  band  of  the  Confederates 
played  "My  Maryland"  and  "Dixie"  and  then  all  the 
Southern  troops  cheered  and  cheered.  But  after  awhile 
one  of  the  bands  struck  up  "Home,  Sweet  Home,"  and 
the  band  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  took  up  the 
strain,  and  when  the  tune  was  done  the  confederates  and 
the  Federals  all  together  united,  as  the  tears  rolled  down 
their  cheeks,  in  one  great  huzza!  huzza! 

Well  my  friends,  heaven  comes  very  near  to-day.  It 
is  only  a  stream  that  divides  us — the  narrow  stream  of 
death — and  the  voices  there  and  the  voices  here  seem  to 
commingle,  and  we  join  trumpets,  and  hossanahs,  and 
hallelujahs,  and  the  chorus  of  the  united  song  of  earth 
and  heaven  is,  "Home,  Sweet  Home,"  Home  of  bright 
domestic  circle  on  earth.  Home  of  forgiveness  in  the 
great  heart  of  God.  Home  of  eternal  rest  in  heaven. 
Home!  Home!  Home! 


TALMAGE'S  NEW  TABRNACLE,   BROOKLYN,   N.  Y. 
'    DESTROYED  BY  FIRE,    1 894. 


UNDER  THE  POLICE   LANTERN. 


"The  destruction  of  the  poor  is  their  poverty." — Poverbs  x,  15. 

n  an  island  nine  miles  long  by  two  and  a  half  wide 
Jstands  the  largest  city  on  this  continent — a  city 
w  mightiest  for  virtue  and  for  vice.  Before  I  get 
through  with  this  series  of  Sabbath  morning  discourses, 
I  shall  show  you  the  midnoon  of  its  magnificent  progress 
and  philanthropy,  as  well  as  the  midnight  of  its  crime 
and  sin. 

Twice  in  every  twenty-four  hours  our  City  Hall  and 
old  Trinity  clocks  strike  twelve — once  while  business  and 
art  are  in  tull  blast,  and  once  while  iniquity  is  doing  its 
uttermost.  Both  stories  must  be  told.  It  is  pleasanter 
to  put  on  a  plaster  than  to  thrust  in  a  probe;  but  it  is  ab- 
surd to  propose  remedies  for  disease  until  we  have  taken 
a  diagnosis  of  that  disease.  The  patient  may  squirm 
and  cringe,  and  fight  back,  and  resist;  but  the  surgeon 
must  go  on. 

Before  I  get  through  with  these  Sabbath  morning  ser- 
mons, I  shall  make  you  all  smile  at  the  beautiful  things 
I  will  say  about  the  grandeur  and  beneficence  of  this 
cluster  of  cities;  but  my  work  now  is  excavation  and  ex- 
posure. 

HOW  SOME  OF  THE  CLERGY  SCALP  OLD  SINNERS! 

I  have  as  much  amusement  as  any  man  of  my  profes- 
sion can  afford  to  indulge  in  at  any  one  time,  in  seeing 
some  of  the  clerical  '  'reformers"  of  this  day  mount  their 
war-charger,  dig  in  their  spurs,  and  with  glittering  lance 
dash  down    upon  the   iniquities  of  cities  that   have  been 

[287] 


2  88  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

three  or  four  thousand  years  dead.  These  men  will  cor- 
ner an  old  sinner  of  twenty  or  thirty  centuries  ago,  and 
scalp  him,  and  hang  him,  and  cut  him  to  pieces,  and 
then  say,  "Oh!  what  great  things  have  been  done.  "With 
amazing  prowess,  they  threw  sulphur  at  Sodom,  and  fire 
at  Gomorrah,  and  worms  at  Herod,  and  pitch  Jezebel 
over  the  wall,  but  wipe  off  their  gold  spectacles,  and  put 
on  their  best  kid  gloves,  and  unroll  their  marocco-cover- 
ed  sermon,  and  look  bashful  when  they  begin  to  speak 
about  the  sins  of  our  day,  as  though  it  were  a  shame 
even  to  mention  them.  The  hypocrites!  They  are 
afraid  of  the  libertines  and  the  men  who  drink  too  much, 
in  their  churches,  and  those  who  grind  the  face  of  the 
poor. 

Better,  I  say,  clear  out  all  our  audiences  from  pulpit  to 
storm-door,  until  no  one  is  left  but  the  sexton,  and  he 
staying  merely  to  lock  up,  than  to  have  the  pulpit  afraid 
of  the  pew.  The  time  has  come  when  the  living  Judases 
and  Herods  and  Jezebels  are  to  be  arraigned.  There  is 
one  thing  I  like  about  a  big  church:  a  dozen  people  may 
get  mad  about  the  truth  and  go  off,  and  you  don't  know 
they, are  gone  until  about  the  next  year.  The  cities 
standing  on  the  ground  are  the  cities  to  be  reformed,  and 
not  the  Herculaneums  buried  under  volcanic  ashes,  or 
the  cities  of  the  plain  fifty  feet  under  the  Dead  Sea. 

NEW     REVELATIONS. 

I  unroll  the  scroll  of  new  revelations.  With  city 
missionary,  and  the  police  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn,  I 
have  seen  some  things  that  I  have  not  yet  stated  in  this 
series  of  discourses  on  the  night  side  of  city  life.  The 
night   of  which  I  speak    now  is   darker   than  any  other, 


UNDER    THE  POLICE    LANTERN.  289 

No  glittering  chandelier,  no  blazing  mirror  adorns  it.  It 
is  the  long,  deep  exhaustive  night  of  city  pauperism. 
"We  won't  want  a  carriage  to-night,"  said  the  detectives. 
"A  carriage  would  hinder  us  in  our  work;  a  carriage 
going  through  the  streets  where  we  are  going  would  only 
bring  out  the  people  to  see  what  was  the  matter."  So  on 
foot  we  went  up  the  dark  lanes  of  poverty.  Everything 
revolting  to  eye-,  and  ear,  and  nostril.  Population  un- 
washed, uncombed.  Rooms  unventilated.  Three  mid- 
nights overlapping  each  other — midnight  of  the  natural 
world,  midnight  of  crime,  midnight  of  pauperism.  Stairs 
oozing  with  filth.  The  inmates,  nine-tenths  of  the  jour- 
ney to  their  final  doom,  traveled.  They  started  in  some 
unhappy  home  of  the  city  or  of  the  country.  They 
plunged  into  the  shambles  of  death  within  ten  minutes 
walk  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  New  York,  and  then 
came  on  gradually  down  until  they  have  arrived  at  the 
Fourth  Ward.  When  they  move  out  of  the  Fourth 
Ward  they  will  move  into  Bellevue  Hospital;  when  they 
move  out  of  Bellevue  Hospital  they  will  move  to  Black- 
well's  Island;  when  they  move  from  Blackwell's  Island 
they  will  move  to  the  Potter's  Field;  when  they  move 
from  the  Potter's  Field  they  will  move  into  hell!  Belle- 
vue Hospital  and  Blackwell's  Island  take  care  of  18,000 
patients  in  one  year. 

As  we  passed  on,  the  rain  pattering  on  the  street  and 
dripping  around  the  doorways  made  the  night  more  dis- 
mal. I  said,  "Now  let  the  police  go  ahead,"  and  they 
flashed  their  light,  and  there  were  fourteen  persons  trying 
to  sleep,  or  sleeping,  in  one  room.  Some  on  a  bundle 
of   straw;    more  with   nothing    under  them    and  nothing 


290  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

over    them.  "Oh!"  you    say,      this    is  exceptional." 

It  is  not.  Thousands  lodge  in  that  way.  One  hun- 
dred and  seventy  thousand  families  living  in  tenement 
houses,  in  more  or  less  inconvenience,  more  or  less 
squalor.  Half  a  million  people  in  New  York  City — five 
hundred  thousand  people  living  in  tenement-houses; 
multitudes  of  these  people  dying  by  inches.  Of  the 
twenty-four  thousand  that  die  yearly  in  New  York,  four- 
teen thousand  die  in  tenement-houses.  No  lungs  that 
God  ever  made  could  for  a  long  while  stand  the  atmos- 
phere we  breathed  for  a  little  while.  In  the  Fourth 
Ward,  17,000  people  within  the  space  of  thirty  acres. 
You  say,  "Why  not  clear  them  out?  Why  not,  as  at 
Liverpool,  where  20,000  of  these  people  were  cleared 
out  of  the  city,  and  the  city  saved  from  a  moral  pesti- 
lence, and  the  people  themselves  from  being  victimized?" 
There  will  be  no  reformation  from  these  cities  until  the 
tenement-house  system  is  entirely  broken  up.  The  city 
authorities  will  have  to  buy  farms,  and  will  have  to  put 
these  people  on  those  farms,  and  compel  them  to  work. 
By  the  strong  arm  of  the  law,  by  the  police  lantern  con- 
joined with  Christian  Charity,  these  places  must  be  ex- 
posed and  must  be  uprooted. 

Those  places  in  London  which  have  become  historical 
for  crowded  populations — St.  Giles,  Whitechapel,  Hol- 
born,  the  Strand — have  their  match  at  last  in  the  Sixth 
Ward,  Eleventh  Ward,  Fourteenth  Ward,  Seventh 
Ward  of  New  York.  No  purificatien  for  our  cities  until 
each  family  shall  have  something  of  the  privacy  and  se- 
clusion of  a  home  circle.  As  long  as  they  herd  like  beasts, 
they  will  be  beasts. 


UNDER  THE    POLICE    LANTERN.  201 

Hark!  What  is  that  heavy  thud  on  the  wet  pavement? 
Why,  that  is  a  drunkard  who  has  fallen,  his  head  striking 
against  tl~e  street — striking  very  hard.  The  police  try 
to  lift  him  up.  Ring  the  bell  for  the  city  ambulance. 
No.  Only  an  outcast,  only  a  tatterdemallion — a  heap 
of  sores  and  rags.  But  look  again.  Perhaps  he  has 
some  marks  of  manhood  on  his  face;  perhaps  he  may 
have  been  made  in  the  image  of  God;  perhaps  he  has  a 
soul  which  will  live  after  the  dripping  heavens  of  this 
dismal  night  have  been  rolled  together  as  a  scroll;  per- 
haps he  may  have  been  died  for,  by  a  king;  perhaps  he 
may  yet  be  a  conqueror  charioted  in  the  splendors  of 
heavenly  welcome.      But  we  must  pass  on. 

We  cross  the  street,  and  there,  the  rain  beating  in  his 
face,  lies  a  man  entirely  unconscious.  I  wonder  where 
he  came  from.  I  wonder  if  any  one  is  waiting  for  him. 
I  wonder  if  he  was  ever  rocked  in  a  Christian  cradle.  I 
wonder  if  that  gashed  and  bloated  forhead  was  ever  kiss- 
ed by  a  fond  mother's  lips.  I  wonder  if  he  is  stranded 
for  eternity.      But  we  cannot  stop. 

SOMETHING  THAT    ASTOUNDED    ME. 

We  passed  on  down,  the  air  loaded  with  hlasphemies 
and  obscenities,  until  I  heard  something  that  astounded 
me  more  than  all.  I  said,  "What  is  that?"  It  was  a 
loud,  enthusiastic  Christian  song,  rolling  out  on  the 
stormy  air.  I  went  up  to  the  window  and  looked  in. 
There  was  a  room  filled  with  all  sorts  of  people,  some 
standing,  some  kneeling,  some  sitting,  some  singing,  some 
praying,  some  shaking  hands  as  if  to  give  encouragement, 
some  wringing  their  hands  as  though  over  a  wasted  life. 
What  was  this?       Oh!  it    was    Jerry  McAuley's  glorious 


292  EVILS  OF  THE  CITfES. 

Christian  mission.  There  he  stood,  himself  snatched 
from  death,  snatching  others  from  death.  That  scene 
paid  for  all  the  nausea  and  fatigue  of  the  midnight  ex- 
ploration. Our  tears  fell  with  the  rain — tears  of  sym- 
pathy for  a  good  man's  work;  tears  of  gratitude  to  God 
that  one  lifeboat  had  been  launched  on  that  wild  sea  of 
sin  and  death;  tears  of  hope  that  there  might  be  lifeboats 
enough  to  take  off  all  the  wrecked,  and,  that,  after  a 
while,  the  Church  of  God,  rousing  from  its  fastidtous- 
ness,  might  lay  hold  with  both  hands  of  this  work,  which 
must  be  done  if  our  cities  are  not  to  go  down  in  darkness 
and  fire  and  blood. 

5,000,000  FOREIGN  POPULATION. 

This  cluster  of  cities  have  more  difficulty  than  any 
other  cities  in  all  the  land.  You  must  understand  that 
within  the  last  twenty-eight  years  five  millions  of  foreign 
population  have  arrived  at  our  port.  The  most  of  those 
who  had  capital  and  means  passed  on  to  the  greater 
openings  at  the  West.  Many  however,  stayed  and  have 
become  our  best  citizens,  and  best  members  of  our 
churches;  but  we  know  also  that,  tarrying  within  our 
borders,  there  has  been  a  vast  criminal  population  ready 
to  be  manipulated  by  the  demagogue,  ready  to  hatch  out 
all  kinds  of  criminal  desperation.  The  vagrancy  and  the 
beggary  of  our  cities,  augumented  by  the  very  worst  pop- 
ulations of  London  and  Edinburg,  and  Glasgow,  and 
Berlin,  and  Belfast,  and  Dublin  and  Cork.  We  had 
enough  vagabondage,  and  enough  turpitude  in  our  Amer- 
ican cities  before  this  importation  of  sin  was  dumped  at 
Castle  Garden.  Oh!  this  pauperism,  when  will  it  ever 
be  alleviated?     How  much  we  saw?    How  much  we  could 


UNDER  THE  POLICE  LANTERN.  20,3 

not  see!       How  much  none  but  the  eye  of  Almighty  God 
ever  will  see! 

Flash  the  lantern  of  the  police  around  to  that  station- 
house.  There  they  come  up,  the  poor  creatures,  tipping 
their  torn  hats,  saying,  "Night's  lodging,  sir?"  And  then 
they  are  waived  away  into  the  dormitories.  One  hun- 
dred and  forty  thousand  such  lodgers  in  the  city  of  New 
York  every  year.  The  atmosphere  unbearable.  What 
pathos  in  the  fact  that  many  families  turned  out  of  doors 
because  they  cannot  pay  their  rent,  come  in  here  for 
shelter,  and  after  struggling  for  decency,  and  struggling 
for  a  good  name,  are  flung  into  a  loathsome  pool.  The 
respectable  and  the  reprobate.  Innocent  childhood  and 
vicious  old  age.  The  Lord's  poor  and  Satan's  despera- 
does. There  is  no  report  of  almshouse  und  missionary 
that  will  ever  tell  the  story  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn 
pauperism.  It  will  take  a  large  book,  a  book  with  more 
ponderous  lids,  a  book  made  of  paper  other  than  that  of 
earthly  manufacture.  The  book  of  God's  remembrance! 
At  my  basement  door  we  average  between  fifty  and  one 
hundred  calls  every  day  for  help.  Besides  that,  in  my 
reception  room,  from  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  until 
ten  o'clock  at  night,  there  is  a  continuous  procession  of 
people  applying  for  aid,  making  a  demand  with  an  old- 
fashioned  silken  purse,  caught  at  the  middle  with  a  ring, 
the  wealth  of  Vanderbilt  in  one  end  and  the  wealth  of 
William  B.  Astor  in  the  other  end,  could  not  satisfy. 
Of  course,  I  speak  of  those  men's  wealth  while  they 
lived.  We  have  more  money  now  than  they  have  since 
they  had  their  shroud  on.  But  even  the  shroud  and  the 
grave,  we  find,  are  to  be  contested  for.        Cursed   be  the 


294  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

midnight  prowling  jackals   of  St.    Mark's  Church-yard! 

But  I  must  go  on  with  the  fact  that  the  story  of  Brook- 
lyn and  New  York  pauperism  needs  to  be  written  in  ink, 
black,  blue  and  red — blue  for  the  stripes,  red  for  the 
blood,  black  for  the  infamy.  In  this  cluster  of  cities 
20,000  people  supported  by  the  bureau  for  the  outdoor 
sick;  20,000  people  taken  care  of  by  the  city  hospitals; 
70,000  provided  for  by  private  charity;  80,000  taken  care 
of  by  reformatory  institutions  and  prisons. 

COME  TO  THE  RESCUE. 

Hear  it,  ye  churches,  and  pour  out  your  benefaction. 
Hear  it,  you  ministers  of  religion,  and  utter  words  of 
sympathy  for  the  suffering,  and  thunders  of  indignation 
against  the  cause  of  all  this  wretchedness. 

Hear  it,  mayoralties  and  judicial  bench,  and  con- 
stabularies. 

Unless  we  wake  up,  the  Lord  will  scourge  us  as  tne 
yellow  fever  never  scourged  New  Orleans,  as  the  plague 
never  smote  London,  as  the  earthquake  never  shook  Car- 
raccas,  as  the  fire  never  overwhelmed  Sodom.  I  wish  I 
could  throw  a  bomb-shell  of  arousal  into  every  city  hall, 
meeting-house  and  cathedral  on  the  continent.  The 
factories  at  Fall  River  and  at  Lowell  sometimes  stop  for 
lack  of  demand,  and  for  lack  of  workmen,  but  this  million 
roomed  factory  of  sin  and  death  never  stops,  never 
slackens  a  band,  never  arrests  a  spindle.  The  great 
wheel  of  that  factory  keeps  on  turning,  not  by  such  floods 
as  those  of  the  Merrimac  or  the  Connecticut,  but  crimson 
floods  rushing  forth  from  the  grogeries,  and  the  wine- 
cellars,  and  the  drinking  saloons  of  the  land,  and  the 
faster  the  floods  rush  the  faster  the  wheel  turns;  and  the 


UNDER  THE  POLICE  LANTERN.  2Q5 

band  of  that  wheel  is  woven  from  broken  heart-strings, 
and  every  time  the  wheel  turns,  from  the  mouth  of  the 
mill  come  forth  blasted  estates,  squalor,  vagrancy,  crime, 
sin,  woe — individual  woe,  municipal  woe,  national  woe 
— and  the  creaking  and  the  rumbling  of  the  wheels  are 
the  shrieks  and  the  groans  of  men  and  women  lost  for 
two  worlds,  and  the  cry  is,  "Bring  on  more  fortunes, 
more  homes,  more  States,  more  cities,  to  make  up  the 
awful  grist  of  this  stupendous  mill."  "Oh,"  you  say, 
"the  wretchedness  and  the  sin  of  the  city  will  go  out 
from  lack  of  material  after  awhile."     No,  it  will  not. 

ANOTHER  FLASH  OF  THE  LANTERN. 

The  police  lantern  flashes  in  another  direction.  Here 
comes  15,000  shoeless,  hatless,  homeless  children,  of  the 
street,  in  this  cluster  of  cities.  They  are  the  reserve 
corps  of  this  great  army  of  wretchedness  and  crime  that 
are  dropping  down  into  the  morgue,  the  East  river,  the 
Potter's  Field,  the  prison.  A  philanthropist  has  esti- 
mated that  if  these  children  were  placed  in  a  great  pro- 
cession, double  file,  three  feet  apart,  they  would  make  a 
procession  eleven  miles  long.  Oh!  what  a  pale,  cough- 
ing, hunger-bitten,  sin-cursed,  opthalmic  throng — the 
tigers,  the  adders,  the  scorpions  ready  to  bite  and  sting 
society,  which  they  take  to  be  their  natural  enemy. 
Howard  Mission  has  saved  many.  Children's  Aid 
Society  has  saved  many.  Industrial  Schools  have  saved 
many. 

THE  REGIMENT  OF  BOOTBLACKS. 

One  of  these  societies  transported  30,ooochildred  from 
the  streets  of  our  cities,  to  farms  at  the  West,  by  a 
stratagem   of  charity,    turning  them  from   vagrancy   into 


296  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES. 

useful  citizenship,  and  out  of  21,000  children  thus  trans- 
ported from  the  cities  to  farms  only  twelve  turned  out 
badly.  But  still  the  reserve  corps  of  sin  and  wretched- 
ness marches  on.  There  is  the  regiment  of  boot-blacks. 
They  seem  jolly,  but  they  have  more  sorrow  than  many 
an  old  man  has  had.  All  kinds  of  temptation.  Work- 
ing on,  making  two  or  three  dollars  a  week.  At  fifteen 
years  of  age  sixty  years  old  in  sin.  Pitching  pennies  at 
the  street  corners.  Smoking  fragments  of  castaway 
cigars.  Tempted  by  the  gamblers.  Destroyed  by  the 
top  gallery  in  the  low  playhoues.  Blacking  shoes  their 
regular  business.  Between  times  blackening  their 
morals. 

'  'Shine  your  boots,  sir?"  they  call  out  with  merry  voices, 
but  their  is  a  tremor  in  their  accentuation. 

Who  cares  for  them? 

You  put  your  foot  thoughtlessly  on  their  stand,  and 
you  whistled  or  smoked,  when  God  knows  you  might 
have  given  them  one  kind  word.        They  never  had  one. 

Whoever  prayed  for  a  bootblack? 

Who,  finding  the  wind  blowing  under  the  short  jacket, 
or  reddening  his  bare  neck,   ever  asked  him  to  warm? 

Who,  when  he  is  wronged  out  of  his  ten  cents,  de- 
mands justice  for  him? 

God  have  mercy  on  the  bootblacks. 

THE  SMART  YOUNG  NEWSBOYS. 

The  newsboys,  another  regiment — the  smartest  boys 
in  all  the  city.  At  work  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
At  half-past  three,  by  unnatural  vigilance,  awake  them- 
selves, or  pulled  at  by  rough  hands  In  the  dawn  of  the 
day  standing  before  the  folding-rooms  of  the  great  news- 


UNDER  THE     POLICE  LANTERN.  297 

papers,  taking  the  wet,  damp  sheets  over  their  arms,  and 
against  there  chests  already  shivering  with  the  cold. 
Around  the  bleak  ferries,  and  up  and  down  the  streets  on 
the  cold  days,  singing  as  merrily  as  though  it  were  a 
Christmas  carol;  making  half  a  cent  on  each  paper,  some 
of  them  working  fourteen  hours  for  fifty  cents!  Nine 
thousand  of  these  newsboys  applied  for  aid  at  the  News- 
boy's Lodging-house  on  Park  place,  New  York  in  one 
year.  About  one  thousand  of  them  laid  up  in  the  savings 
bank  connected  with  that  institution,  a  little  more  than 
$3,000.  But  still  this  great  army  marches  on,  hungry, 
cold,  sick,  toward  an  early  grave,  or  a  quick  prison.  I 
tell  you  there  is  nothing  that  so  moves  my  compassion 
as  on  a  cold  winter  morning  to  see  one  of  these  news- 
boys, a  fourth  clad,  newspapers  on  his  arm  that  he  can- 
not seem  to  sell,  face  or  hands  bleeding  from  a  fall,  or 
rubbing  his  knee  to  relieve  it  from  having  been  hit  on 
the  side  of  a  car,  as  some  "gentleman,"  with  furs  around 
his  neck  and  gauntlets  lined  with  lamb's  wool,  shoved 
him  off,  saying,  "You  miserable  rat!"  Yet  hawking  the 
papers  through  the  streets,  papers  full  of  railroad  acci- 
dents and  factory  explosions,  and  steamers  foundering  at 
sea  in  the  last  storm,  yet  saying  nothing,  and  that  which 
is  to  him  worse  than  all  the  other  calamities  and  all  the 
other  disasters,  the  calamity  that  he  was  ever  born  at 
all. 

Flash  the  police  lantern  around,  and  let  us  see  these 
poor  lads  cuddled  up  under  the  stairway.  Look  at  them! 
Now  for  a  little  while  they  are  unconscious  of  all  their 
pains  and  aches,  and  of  the  storm  and  darkness,  once  in 
awhile    struggling  in    their  dreams  as    though    some  one 


298  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

were  trying  to  take  the  papers  away  from  them.  Stand- 
ing there  I  wondered  if  it  would  be  right  to  wish  that 
they  might  never  wake  up.    God  pity  them! 

There  are  other  regiments  in  this  reserve  corps — regi- 
ments of  rag-pickers,  regiments  of  match-sellers,  regi- 
ments of  juvenile  vagrants.  Oh!  if  these  lads  are  not 
saved,  what  is  to  become  of  our  cities? 

THE  POLICE  STRATEGEM  AND  THE  PREACHER. 

But  I  said  to  the  detective,  "I  have  had  enough  of 
this  to-night;  let  us  go."  But  by  that  time  I  had  lost 
the  points  of  the  compass,  for  we  had  gone  down  star; 
ways  and  up  stairways,  and  wandered  down  through  this 
street  and  that  street,  and  all  I  knew  was  that  I  was 
bounded  on  the  north  by  want,  and  on  the  south  by 
squalor,  and  on  the  east  by  crime,  and  on  the  west  by 
despair.  The  fact  was  that  everything  had  opened  be- 
fore us;  for  these  detectives  pretended  to  be  searching 
for  a  thief,  and  they  took  me  along  as  the  man  who  had 
lost  the  property.        The  stratagem  was  theirs,  not  mine. 

But  I  thought  coming  home  that  rainy  night,  I  wished 
I  could  make  pass  before  my  congregation,  as  in  a  pan- 
orama, all  that  scene  of  suffering,  that  I  might  stir  their 
pity  and  arouse  their  beneficence,  and  make  them  the 
everlasting  friends  of  city  evangelization. 

"Why,"  you  say,  "I  had  no  idea  things  were  so  bad. 
Why,  I  get  in  my  carriage  at  forty-fifth  street  and  I  ride 
clear  down  to  my  banking-house  in  wall  street,  and  I 
don't  see  anything." 

No,  you  do  not  want  to  see!  The  King  and  the  Parlia 
ment  of  England  did  not  know  that  there  were  thirty-six 
barrels  of   gunpowder  rolled    into  the    vaults    under   the 


UNDER  THE    POLICE  LANTERN.  2QQ. 

Parliament  House.  They  did  not  know  Guy  Fawkes  had 
his  touchwood  and  matches  all  ready — ready  to  dash  the 
government  of  England  into  atoms.  The  conspiracy  was 
revealed,  however. 

I  tell  you  I  have  explored  the  vaults  of  city  life,  and 
I  am  here  this  morning  to  tell  you  that  there  are  death- 
ful  and  explosive  influences  under  all  our  cities,  ready  to 
destroy  us  with  a  great  moral  convulsion.  Some  men 
say:  "I  don't  see  anything  of  this,  and  I  am  not  interest- 
ed in  it."     You  ought  to  be. 

You  remind  me  of  a  man  who  has  been  shipwrecked 
with  a  thousand  others.  He  happens  to  get  up  on  the 
shore,  and  the  others  are  all  down  in  the  surf.  He  goes 
up  in  a  fisherman's  cabin,  and  sits  down  to  warm  him- 
self. The  fisherman  says:  "Oh!  this  won't  do.  Come 
out  and  help  me  to  get  these  others  out  of  the  surf." 

"Oh,  no!"  says  the  man;  "it's  my  business  now  to 
warm  myself." 

"But,"  says  the  fisherman,  these  men  are  dying;  are 
you  not  going  to  give  them  help?" 

"Oh,  no!  I've  got  ashore  myself,  and  I  must  warm 
myself!" 

That  is  what  people  are  doing  in  the  church  to-day. 
A  great  multitude  are  out  in  the  surf  of  sin  and  death, 
going  down  forever;  but  men  sit  by  the  fire  of  the  church, 
warming  their  Christian  graces,  warming  their  faith, 
warming  their  hope  for  heaven,  and  I  say,  "Come  out, 
and  work  to-day  for  Christ." 

"Oh,  no,"  they  say;  "my  sublime  duty  is  to  warm 
myself?" 

Such  men  as    that  will  not  come  within   ten  thousand 


300  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

miles  of  heaven!  Help  foreign  missions.  Those  of  my 
own  blood  are  toiling  in  foreign  lands  with  Christ's  Word. 
Send  a  million  dollars  for  the  salvation  of  the  heathen — 
that  is  right — but  look  after  the  heathen  also  around  the 
mouths  of  the  Hudson  and  East  rivers.  Send  missionaries 
if  you  will  to  Borioboola-gha,  but  send  missionaries  also 
through  Houston  street,  Mercer  street,  Greene  street, 
Navy  street,  Fulton  street,  and  all  around  about  Brook- 
lyn Atlantic  Docks.  If  you  will,  send  quilted  coverlets 
to  Central  Africa  to  keep  the  natives  warm  in  summer- 
time, and  send  ice-cream  freezers  to  Greenland,  but  do 
have  a  little  common  sense  and  practical  charity,  and 
help  these  cities  here  that  want  hats,  want  clothes,  want 
shoes,  want  fire,  want  medicines,  want  instruction,  want 
the  Gospel,  want  Christ. 

I  must  adjourn  to  another  Sabbath  morning  much  of 
what  I  have  to  say  in  regard  to  this  midnight  exploration, 
and  also  the  proposing  of  remedies;  for  I  am  not  the 
man  to  stand  here  Sabbath  by  Sabbath  talking  of  ills 
whe.i  I  have  no  panacea.  There  is  an  almighty  rescue 
for  the  city,  and  in  due  time  I  will  speak  of  these  things. 

THE  TWO  MAGIC  LANTERNS. 

You  have  seen  often  a  magic  lantern.  You  have  seen 
the  room  darkened,  and  then  the  magic  lantern  throwing 
a  picture  on  the  canvas.  Well,  this  morning  [  wish  I 
could  darken  these  three  great  emblazoned  windows,  and 
have  all  the  doors  darkened,  and  then  I  could  bring  out 
two  magic  lanterns — the  magic  lantern  of  the  home,  and 
the  magic  lantern  of  the  police. 

Here  is  the  magic  lantern  of  the  home.  Look  now 
upon  the  canvas.        Mother  putting  the  little  children  to 


UNDER    THE  POLICE    LANTERN.  301 

bed,  trying  to  hush  the  frisky  and  giggling  group  for  the 
evening  prayer;  their  foreheads  against  the  counterpane, 
they  are  trying  to  say  their  evening  prayer;  their  tongue 
is  so  crooked  that  none  but  God  and  the  mother  can  un- 
derstand it.  Then  the  children  are  lifted  into  bed,  and 
they  are  covered  up  to  the  chin.  Then  the  mother  gives 
them  a  warm  good-night  kiss,  and  leaves  them  to  the 
guardian  angels  that  spread  wings  of  canopy  over  the 
trundle-bed. 

Midnight  lantern  of  the  police.  Look  now  on  the 
canvas.  A  boy  kennelled  for  the  night  underneath  the 
stairway  in  a  hall  through  which  the  wind  sweeps,  or 
lying  on  the  cold  ground.  He  has  no  parentage.  He 
was  pitched  into  the  world  by  a  merciless  incognito.  He 
does  not  go  to  bed;  he  has  no  bed.  His  cold  fingers 
thrust  through  his  matted  hair  his  only  pillow.  He  did 
not  sup  last  night;  he  will  not  breakfast  to-morrow.  An 
outcast;  a  ragamuffin.  He  did  not  say  his  prayers  when 
he  retired;  he  knows  no  prayer;  he  never  heard  the  name 
of  God  or  Christ,  except  as  something  to  swear  by.  The 
wings  over  him,  not  the  wings  of  angels,  but  the  dark, 
bat-like  wings  of  penury  and  want. 

Magic  lantern  of  the  home.  Look  now  on  the  canvas. 
Family  gathered  around  the  argand  burner.  Father, 
feet  on  ottoman,  mother  sewing  a  picturesque  pattern. 
Two  children  pretending  to  study,  but  chiefly  watching 
other  children  who  are  in  unrestrained  romp,  so  many 
balls  of  fun  and  frolic  in  full  bounce  from  room  to  room. 
Background  of  pictures  and  upholstery  and  musical  in- 
strument, from  which  jeweled  fingers  sweep  "Home, 
Sweet  Home." 


302  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

Magic  lantern  of  the  police.  Look  now  on  the  canvas. 
A  group  intoxicated  and  wrangling,  cursing  God,  cursing 
each  other;  the  past  all  shame,  the  future  all  suffering. 
Children  fleeing  from  the  missile  flung  by  a  father's  hand. 
Fragments  of  a  chair  propped  against  the  wall.  Frag- 
ments of  a  pitcher  standing  on  the  mantle.  A  pile  of 
refuse  wood  brought  in  from  some  kitchen,  torn  by  the 
human  swine  plunging  into  the  trough. 

Magic  lantern  of  the  home.  Look  now  upon  the  can- 
vas. A  Christian  daughter  has  just  died.  Carriages 
rolling  up  to  the  door  in  sympathy.  Flowers  in  crowns 
and  anchors  and  harps  covering  the  beautiful  casket,  the 
silver  plate  marked,  "aged  i8.''  Funeral  services  in- 
toned amid  the  richly-shawled  and  gold-bracleted.  Long 
procession  going  out  this  way  to  unparralled  Greenwood 
to  the  beautiful  family  lot  where  the  sculptor  will  raise 
the  monument  of  burnished  Aberdeen  with  the  inscrip- 
tion, "She  is  not  dead,  but  sleepth."  Oh!  blessed  is  that 
home  which  has  a  consecrated  Christian  daughter, 
whether  on  earth  or  in  heaven. 

Magic  lantern  of  the  police.  Look  now  on  the  can- 
vas. A  poor  waif  of  the  street  has  just  expired.  Did 
she  have  any  doctor? 

No. 

Did  she  have  any  medicine? 

No. 

Did  she  have  any  hands  to  close  her  eyes  and  fold  her 
arms  in  death? 

No. 

Are  there  no  garments  in  the  house  fit  to  wrap  her  in 
for  the  tomb?     None. 


UNDER    THE  POLICE    LANTERN.  303 

Those  worn-out  shoes  will  not  do  for  these  feet  in 
*heir  last  journey.        Where  are  all   the  good  Christians? 

Oh!  some  of  them  are  rocking-chaired,  in  morning 
gowns,  in  tears  over  Bulwer  Lytton's  account  of  the  last 
days  of  Pompeii;  they  are  so  sorry  for  that  girl  that  got 
petrified!  Others  of  the  Christians  are  in  church,  kneel- 
ing on  a  soft  rug,  praying  for  the  forlorn  Hottentots! 
Come,  call  in  the  Coroner — call  in  the  Charity  Commis- 
sioner. 

The  Carpenter  unrolls  the  measuring-tape,  and  decides 
she  will  need  a  box  five  and  a  half  feet  long.  Two  men 
lift  her  into  the  box,  lift  the  box  into  the  wagon,  and  it 
srarts  for  the  Potter's  Field.  The  excavation  is  not  large 
enough  for  the  box,  and  the  men  are  in  a  hurry,  and  one 
of  them  gets  on  the  lid  and  cranches  it  down  to  its  place 
in  the  ground. 

Stop!  Wait  for  the  city  missionary  until  he  can  come 
and  read  a  chapter,  or  say,  "Ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to 
dust." 

"No,"  says  the  men  of  the  spade,  "we  have  three  or 
four  more  cases  just  like  this  to  bury  before  night." 

"Wrell",  I  say,  "how,  then,  is  the  grave  to  be  filled 
up?" 

Christ  suggests  a  way.  Perhaps  it  had  better  be  filled 
up  with  stones.  "Let  those  who  are  without  sin  come 
and  cast  a  stone  at  her,"  until  the  excavation  is  filled. 

THE  CHRIST  OF  MARY  MAGDALEN. 

Then  the  wagon  rolls  off,  and  I  see  a  form  come  slowly 
across  the  Potter's  Field.  He  walks  very  slowly,  as  his 
feet  hurt.  He  comes  to  that  grave,  and  there  he  stands 
all  day  and  all    night,  and    I  come    out  and  accost    him, 


304  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

and  I  say,  "Who  art  thou!"  And  he  says,  "I  am  the 
Christ  of  Mary  Magdalen!"  And  then  I  thought  that 
perhaps  there  might  have  been  a  dying  prayer,  and  that 
there  might  have  been  penitential  tears,  and  around  that 
miserable  spot  at  the  last  there  may  be  more  resurrection 
pomp  than  when  Queen  Elizabeth  gets  out  of  her  mauso- 
leum in  Westminster  Abbey. 

But  I  must  close  the  two  lanterns. 


THE  WAITING  WIFE. 


CLUB-HOUSES— GOOD  AND    BAD. 


"Let  the  young  men  now  arise  and  play  before  us." — II  Samuel  1 1,  14 

fhere  are  two  armies  encamped  by  the  pool  of 
Gibeon.  The  time  hangs  heavily  on  their  hands. 
One  army  proposed  a  game  of  sword-fencing- 
Nothing  could  be  more  healthful  and  innocent.  The 
other  army  accepts  the  challenge.  Twelve  men  against 
twelve  men,  the  sport  opens.  But  something  went  ad- 
versely. Perhaps  one  of  the  swordsmen  got  an  unlucky 
clip,  or  in  some  way  had  his  ire  aroused,  and  that  which 
opened  in  sportfulness  ended  in  violence,  each  one  taking 
his  contestant  by  the  hair,  and  then  with  the  sword 
thrusting  him  in  the  side;  so  that  that  which  opened  in 
innocent  fun  ended  in  the  massacre  of  all  the  twenty-four 
sportsmen. 

Was  there  ever  a  better  illustration  of  what  was  true 
then,  and  is  true  now,  that  that  which  is  innocent  may 
be  made  destructive? 

In  my  exploration  of  the  night  side  of  city  life,  I  have 
found  out  that  there  is  legitimate  and  an  illegitimate 
use  of  the  club-house.  In  the  one  case  it  may  become 
a  healthful  recreation,  like  the  contest  or  the  twenty-four 
men  in  the  text  when  they  began  their  play;  in  the  other 
case  it  becomes  the  massacre  of  body,  mind,  and  soul, 
as  in  the  case  of  these  contestants  of  the  text  when  they 
had  gone  too  far  with  their  sport. 

All  intelligent  ages  have  had  their  gatherings  for  polit- 

[305] 


306  EVILS  OF    THE    CITIES. 

ical,  social,  artistic,  literary  purposes — gatherings  charac- 
terized by  the  blunt  old  Anglo-Saxon  designation  of 
"club."  If  you  have  read  history,  you  know  that  there 
was  a  King's  Head  Club,  a  Ben  Johnson  Club;  a  Brother's 
Club,  to  which  Swift  and  Bolingbroke  belonged;  a  Liter- 
ary Club,  which  Burke  and  Goldsmith  and  Johnson  and 
Boswell  made  immortal:  a  Jacobin  Club,  a  Benjamin 
Franklin  Junto  Club.  Some  of  these  to  indicate  justice, 
some  to  favor  the  arts,  some  to  promote  good  manners, 
some  to    despoil  the  habits,  some  to  destroy  the  soul. 

If  one  will  write  an  honest  history  of  the  clubs  of  Eng- 
land, Ireland,  Scotland,  France,  and  the  United  States 
for  the  last  one  hundred  years,  he  will  write  the  history 
of  the  world. 

ORIGIN    OF    THE  CLUB. 

The  club  was  an  institution  born  on  English  soil,  but 
it  has  thrived  well  in  American  atmosphere.  We  have 
in  this  cluster  of  cities  a  great  number  of  them,  with 
seventy  thousand  members,  so  called,  so  known;  but 
who  shall  tell  how  many  belong  to  that  kind  of  club 
where  men  put  purses  together  and  open  house,  appor- 
tioning the  expense  of  caterer  and  servants  and  room, 
and  having  a  sort  of  domestic  establishment — a  style  of 
club-house  which  in  my  opinion  is  far  better  than  the 
ordinary  hotel  or  boarding-house? 

THE  DIFFERENT  KINDS  OF  CLUBS. 

But  my  object  now  is  to  speak  of  club-houses  of  a  dif- 
ferent sort,  such  as  the  Union  League,  which  was  estab- 
lished during  the  war,  having  patriotic  purposes,  which 
has  now  between  thirteen  and  fourteen  hundred  members, 
which  is   now  also  the  head-quarters  of    Republicanism; 


CLUB-HOUSE  LIFE.  307 

likewise  the  Manhattan,  with  large  admission  fee,  four 
or  five  hundred  members,  the  headquarters  of  the  Demo- 
cracy, like  the  Union  Club,  established  in  1836,  when 
New  York  had  only  a  little  over  three  hundred  thousand 
inhabitants,  their  present  building  having  cost  $250,000 
— they  have  a  membership  of  between  eight  and  nine 
hundred  people,  among  them  some  of  the  leading  mer- 
chant princes  of  the  land;  like  the  Lotos,  where  jour- 
nalists, dramatists,  sculptors,  painters  and  artist,,  from 
all  branches,  gather  together  to  discuss  newspapers, 
theatres,  and  elaborate  art;  like  the  Americus,  which 
camps  out  in  summer  time,  dimpling  the  pool  with  its 
hook,  and  arousing  the  forest  with  its  stag  hunt;  like  the 
Century  Club,  which  has  its  large  group  of  venerable 
lawyers  and  poets;  like  the  Army  and  Navy  Club,  where 
those  who  engaged  on  warlike  service  once  on  the  land  or 
the  sea  now  come  together  to  talk  over  the  days  of  car- 
nage; like  the  New  York  Yacht  Club,  with  its  floating 
palaces  of  beauty  upholstered  with  velvet  and  paneled 
with  ebony,  having  all  the  advantages  of  electric  bell, 
and  of  gaslight,  and  of  king's  pantry,  one  pleasure-boat 
costing  three  thousand,  another  fifteen  thousand,  another 
thirty  thousand,  another  sixty-five  thousand  dollars,  the 
fleet  of  pleasure-boats  belonging  to  the  club  having  cost 
over  two  million  dollars;  like  the  American  Jockey  Club, 
to  which  belong  men  who  have  a  passionate  fondness  for 
horses,  fine  horses,  as  had  Job  when,  in  the  Scriptures, 
he  gives  us  a  sketch  of  that  king  of  beasts,  the  arch  of 
its  neck,  the  nervousness  of  its  foot,  the  majesty  of  its 
gait,  the  whirlwind  of  its  power,  crying  out: 

"Hast  thou  clothed  his  neck  with  thunder?     The  glory 


308  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

of  his  nostrils  is  terrible;  he  paweth  in  the  valley  and 
rejoiceth  in  his  strength,  he  saith  among  the  trumpets 
ha!  ha!  and  he  smelleth  the  battle  afar  off,  the  thunder 
of  the  captains,  and  the  shouting;"  like  the  Travelers' 
Club,  the  Blossom  Club,  the  Palette  Club,  the  Commer- 
cial Club,  the  Liberal  Club,  the  Stable  Gang  Club,  the 
Amateur  Boat  Club,  the  gambling  clubs,  the  wine  clubs, 
the  clubs  of  all  sizes,  the  clubs  of  all  morals,  clubs  as 
good  as  good  can  be,  and  clubs  as  bad  as  bad  can  be, 
clubs  innumerable. 

No  series  of  sermons  on  the  night  side  of  city  life 
would  be  complete  without  a  sketch  of  the  clubs,  which, 
after  dark  are  in  full  blast. 

THE  CLUB-HOUSE    DESCRIBED. 

During  the  day  they  are  comparatively  lazy  places. 
Here  and  there  an  aged  man  reading  a  newspaper,  or  an 
employee  dusting  a  sofa,  or  a  clerk  writing  up  the  ac- 
counts; but  when  the  curtain  of  the  night  falls  on  the 
natural  day,  then  the  curtain  of  the  club-house  hoists 
for  the  entertainment.  Let  us  hasten  up,  now,  the  mar- 
ble stairs.  What  an  imperial  hallway!  See!  here  are 
parlors  on  this  side,  with  the  upholstery  of  the  Kremlin 
and  the  Tuilleries;  and  here  are  dining-halls  that  chal- 
lange  you  to  mention  any  luxury  that  they  cannot  afford; 
and  here  are  galleries  with  sculpture,  and  paintings,  and 
lithographs,  and  drawings  from  the  best  of  artists,  Crop- 
sey,  and  Bierstadt,  and  Church,  and  Hart,  and  Gifford — 
pictures  for  every  mood,  whether  you  are  impassioned  or 
placid;  shipwreck,  or  sunlight  over  the  sea;  Sheridan's 
Ride,  or  the  noonday  party  of  the  farmers  under  the  tree; 


CLUB-HOUSE  LIFE.  309 

foaming  deer  pursued  by  the  hounds  in  the  Andirondacks, 
or  the  sheep  on  the  lawn. 

On  this  side  there  are  reading-rooms  where  you  find 
all  newspapers  and   magazines. 

On  that  side  there  is  a  library,  where  you  can  find  all 
books,  from  hermeneutics  to  the  fairy  tale. 

Coming  in  and  out  there  are  gentlemen,  some  of  whom 
stay  ten  minutes,  others  stay  many  hours.  Some  of 
these  are  from  luxuriant  homes,  and  they  have  excused 
themselves  for  a  while  from  the  domestic  circle  that  they 
may  enjoy  the  larger  sociability  of  the  club-house.  These 
are  from  dismembered  households,  and  they  have  a  plain 
lodging  somewhere,  but  they  come  to  this  club-room  to 
have  their  chief  enjoyment.  One  blackball  amid  ten 
votes  will  defeat  a  man's  becoming  a  member.  For 
rowdyism,  for  drunkenness,  for  gambling,  for  any  kind 
of  misdemeanor,  a  member  is  dropped  out.  Brilliant 
club-house  from  top  to  bottom.  The  chandeliers,  the 
plate,  the  furniture,  the  companionship,  the  literature, 
the  social  prestige,  a  complete  enchantment. 

THE  BAD  CLUB-HOUSE. 

But  the  evening  is  passing  on,  and  so  we  hasten 
through  the  hall  and  down  the  steps,  and  into  the  street, 
and  from  block  to  block  until  we  come  to  another  style 
of  club-house.  Opening  the  door,  we  find  the  fumes  of 
strong  drink  snd  tobacco  something  almost  intolerable. 
These  young  men  at  this  table,  it  is  easy  to  understand 
what  they  are  at,  from  the  flushed  cheek,  the  intent  look, 
the  almost  angry  way  of  tossing  the  dice,  or  of  moving 
the    ' 'chips."     They  are  gambling. 

At  another  table  are  men  who    are  telling  vile   stories. 


310  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

They  are  three-fourths  intoxicated,  and  between  12  and 
1  o'clock  they  will  go  staggering,  hooting,  swearing, 
shouting  on  their  way  home.  That  is  an  only  son.  On 
him  all  kindness,  all  care,  all  culture  has  been  bestowed 
He  is  paying  his  parents  in  this  way  for  their  kindness. 
That  is  a  young  married  man,  who,  only  a  few  months 
ago,  at  the  altar,  made  promises  of  kindness  and  fidelity, 
every  one  of  which  he  has  broken. 

Walk  through  and  see  for  yourself.  Here  are  all  the 
implements  of  dissipation  and  of  quick  death.  As  the 
hours  of  the  night  go  away,  the  conversation  becomes 
imbecile  and  more  debasing.  Now  it  is  time  to  shut  up. 
Those  who  are  able  to*  stand  will  get  out  on  the  pave- 
ment and  balance  themselves  against  the  lamp-post, 
or  against  the  railings  of  the  fence.  The  young  man 
who  is  not  able  to  stand  will  have  a  bed  improvised  for 
him  in  the  club-house,  or  two  not  quite  so  overcome  with 
liquor  will  conduct  him  to  his  father's  house,  and  they 
will  ring  the  door-bell,  and  the  door  will  open,  and  the 
two  imbecile  escorts  will  introduce  into  the  hallway  the 
ghastliest  and  most  hellish  spectacle  that  ever  enters  a 
front  door — a  drunken  son. 

If  the  dissipating  club-houses  of  this  country  would 
make  a  contract  with  the  Inferno  to  provide  it  ten  thou- 
sand men  a  year  and  for  twenty  years,  on  the  condition 
that  no  more  should  be  asked  of  them,  the  club-houses 
could  afford  to  make  that  contract,  for  they  would  save 
homesteads,  save  fortunes,  save  bodies,  save  minds,  and 
souls.  The  ten  thousand  men  who  would  be  sacrificed 
by  that  contract  would  be  but  a  small  part  of  the  multi' 
tude  sacrificed  without  the  contract. 


CLUB-HOUSE  LIFE.  3  I  I 

But  I  make  a  vast  difference  between  clubs.  I  have 
belonged  to  four  clubs:  A  theological  club,  a  ball  club, 
and  two  literary  clubs.  I  got  from  them  physical  rejuve- 
nation and  moral  health.  What  shall  be  the  principles 
by  which  you  may  judge  whether  the  club  where  you  are 
a  member,  or  the  club  to  which  you  have  been  invited, 
is  a  legitimate  or  an  illegitimate  club-house. 

HOW  TO    TEST   THE     CLUB-HOUSES THEIR  INFLUENCE 

ON  THE    HOMES. 

First  of  all  I  want  you  to  test  the  club  by  its  influences 
on  home,  if  you  have  a  home.  I  have  been  told  by  a 
prominent  gentleman  in  club  life  that  three-fourths  of 
the  members  of  the  great  clubs  of  these  cities  are  mar- 
ried men.  That  wife  soon  loses  her  influence  over  her 
husband  who  nervously  and  foolishly  looks  upon  all  even- 
ing absence  as  an  assault  on  domesticity.  How  are  the 
great  enterprises  of  art  and  literature  and  beneficence 
and  public  weal  to  be  carried  on  if  every  man  is  to  have 
his  world  bounded  on  one  side  by  his  front  door-step, 
and  on  the  other  side  by  his  back  window,  knowing  noth- 
ing higher  than  his  own  attic,  or  nothing  lower  than  his 
own  cellar?  That  wife  who  becomes  jealous  of  her  hus- 
band's attention  to  art,  or  literature,  or  religion,  or 
charity,  is  breaking  her  own  sceptre  of  conjugal  power. 
I  know  in  this  church  an  instance  where  a  wife  thought 
that  her  husband  was  giving  too  many  nights  to  Chris- 
tian service,  to  charitable  service,  to  prayer-meetings, 
and  to  religious  convocation.  She  systematically  de- 
coyed him  away  until  now  he  attends  neither  this  nor 
any  other  church,  and  he  is  on  a  rapid  way  to  destruction, 
his  morals  gone,  money  gone,  and,  I  fear,  his  soul  gone- 


312  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

L,et  any  Christian  wife  rejoice  when  her  husband  con- 
secrates evenings  to  the  service  of  God,  or  to  charity,  or 
to  art,  or  to  anything  elevated ;  but  let  not  men  sacrifice 
home  life  to  club  life. 

GENIAL  AS  ANGELS  AT  THE  CLUB-HOUSE  AND  AS  UGLY 
AS   SIN  AT  HOME. 

I  have  the  rolls  of  the  members  of  a  great  many  of  the 
prominent  clubs  of  these  cities,  and  I  can  point  out  to 
you  a  great  many  names  of  men  who  are  guilty  of  this 
sacrilege.  They  are*  as  genial  as  angels  at  the  club- 
house, and  as  ugly  as  sin  at  home.  They  are  generous 
on  all  subjects  of  wine  suppers,  yachts,  and  fast  horses, 
but  they  are  stingy  about  the  wife's  dress,  and  the  chil- 
dren's shoes.  That  man  has  made  that  which  might  be 
a  healthful  recreation  an  usurper  of  his  affections,  and 
he  has  married  it,  and  he  is  guilty  of  moral  bigamy. 
Under  this  process  the  wife,  whatever  her  features,  be- 
comes uninteresting  and  homely.  He  becomes  critical 
of  her,  does  not  like  the  dress,  does  not  like  the  way  she 
arranges  her  hair,  is  amazed  that  he  ever  was  so  unro- 
mantic  as  to  offer  her  hand  and  heart.  She  is  always 
wanting  money,  money,  when  she  ought  to  be  discussing 
Eclipses,  and  Dexter,  and  Derby  Day,  and  English  drags 
with  six  horses,  all  answering  the  pull  of  one  "ribbon." 

I  tell  you,  there  are  thousands  of  houses  in  Brooklyn 
and  New  York  being  clubbed  to  death!  There  are  club- 
houses in  these  cities  where  membership  always  involves 
domestic  shipwreck.  Tell  me  that  a  man  has  joined  a 
certain  club,  tell  me  nothing  more  about  him  for  ten 
years,  and  I  will  write  his  history,  if  he  be  still  alive. 
The  man  is  a  wine-guzzler,  his  wife  broken-hearted  or 


CLUB-HOUSE  LIFE.  31? 

prematurely   old,  his    fortune    gone  or  reduced,    and  his 
home  a  mere  name  in  a  directory. 

THE  DIFFERFNCE. 

Here  are  six  secular  nights  in  the  week. 
'•What  shall  I  do  with  them?"  says  the  father  and  the 
husband.  "I  will  give  four  of  th^se  nights  to  the  im- 
provement and  entertainment  of  my  family,  either  at 
home  or  in  good  neighborhood;  I  will  devote  one  to  char- 
itable institutions;  I  will  devote  one  to  the  club." 

I  congratulate  you. 

Here  is  a  man  who  says,  "I  will  make  a  different 
division  of  the  six  nights.  I  will  take  three  for  the  club 
and  three  for  other  purposes." 

I  tremble. 

Here  is  a  man  who  says,  '  'Out  of  the  six  secular  nights 
of  the  week,  I  will  devote  five  to  the  club  house  and  one 
to  the  home,  which  night  I  will  spend  in  scowling  like  a 
march  squall,  wishing  I  was  out  spending  it  as  I  had 
spent  the  other  five." 

That  man's  obituary  is  written.  Not  one  out  of  ten 
thousand  that  ever  gets  so  far  on  the  wrong  road  ever 
stops.  Gradually  his  health  will  fail,  through  late  hours 
and  through  too  much  stimulus.  He  will  be  first-rate 
prey  for  erysipelas  and  rheumatism  of  the  heart. 

The  doctor  coming  in  will  at  a  glance  see  it  is  not 
only  present  disease  he  must  fight,  but  years  of  fast 
living. 

The  clergyman,  for  the  sake  of  the  feelings  of  th? 
family,  on  the  funeral  day  will  only  talk  in  religious  gen- 
eralities. 

The  men  who  got  his  yacht   in  the  eternal  rapids  will 


3 14  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

not  be  at  the  obsequies.  They  will  have  pressing  en- 
gagements that  day.  They  will  send  flowers  to  the 
coffin-lid,  and  send  their  wives  to  utter  words  of  sym- 
pathy, but  they  will  have  engagements  elsewhere.  They 
never  come. 

Bring  me  mallet  and  chisel,  and  I  will  cut  on  the 
tombstone  that  man's  epitaph,  ' 'Blessed  are  the  dead 
who  die  in  the  Lord." 

"No,"  you  say,   "that  would  not  be  appropriate." 

"Let  me  die  the  death  of  the  righteous,  and  let  my 
last  end  be  like  his." 

"No,"  you  say,    "that  would  not  be  appropriate." 

Then  give  me  the  mallet  and  the  chisel,  and  I  will  cut 
an  honest  epitaph;  "Here  lies  the  victim  of  a  dissipat- 
ing club-house!" 

I  think  that  damage  is  often  done  by  the  scions  of  some 
aristocratic  family  who  belong  to  one  of-  these  dissipat- 
ing club-houses.  People  coming  up  from  humbler  classes 
feel  it  an  honor  to  belong  to  the  same  club,  forgetting 
the  fact  that  many  of  the  sons  and  grandsons  of  the  large 
commercial  establishments  of  the  last  generation  are 
now,  as  to<>mind,  imbecile;  as  to  body,  diseased;  as  to 
morals,  rotten.  They  would  have  got  through  their 
property  long  ago  if  they  had  had  full  possession  of  it; 
but  the  wily  ancestors,  who  got  the  money  by  hard 
knocks,  foresaw  how  it  was  to  be,  and  they  tied  up  every- 
thing in  the  will. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  of  that  unworthy  descendant 
but  his  grandfather's  name  and  roast  beef  rotundity.  And 
yet  how  many  steamers  there    are  which  feel  honored  to 


CLUB-HOUSE  LIFE.  3  I  5 

lash  fast    that    worm-eaten  tug,   though    it    drags    them 
straight  into  the  breakers. 

CLUB-HOUSE  INFLUENCE     QN  OCCUPATION. 

Another  test  by  which  you  can  find  whether  your  club 
is  legitimate  or  illegitimate — the  effect  it  has  on  your 
secular  occupation.  I  can  understand  how  through  such 
an  institution  a  man  can  reach  commercial  successes. 
I  know  some  men  have  formed  their  best  business  rela- 
tions through  such  a  channel. 

If  the  club  has  advantaged  you  in  an  honorable  calling 
it  is  a  legitimate  club.     But  has  your  credit  failed? 

Are  bargain-makers  more  cautious  how  they  trust  you 
with  a  bill  of  goods? 

Have  the  men  whose  names  were  down  in  the  com- 
mercial agency  A  I  before  they  entered  the  club,  been 
going  down  since  in  commercial  standing? 

Then  look  out! 

You  and  I  every  day  know  of  commercial  establish- 
ments going  to  ruin  through  the  social  excesses  of  one  or 
two  members.  Their  fortunes  beaten  to  death  with  ball- 
players' bat,  or  cut  amidships  by  the  front  prow  of  the 
regatta,  or  going  down  under  the  swift  hoofs/  of  the  fast 
horses,  or  drowned  in  large  potations  of  Cognac  and 
Monongahela.  Their  club-house  was  the  "Loch  Earn" 
Their  business  house  was  the  "Ville  du  Havre."  They 
struck,  and  the  "Ville  du  Havre"  went  under.  Or,  to 
take  illustration  from  last  Monday  night's  disaster:  Their 
club-house  was  the  "Eilion,"  and  their  business  house 
was  the  "Pommerania. "  They  struck,  and  the  "Pom- 
merania"  went  under. 

A  third  test  by  which  you  may  know  whether  the  club 


3l6  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

to  which  you  belong,  or  the  club  to  whose  membership 
you  are  invited,  is  a  legitimate  club  or  an  illegitimate 
club,  is  this:  What  is  the  effect  on  your  sense  of  moral 
and  religious  obligation? 

CLUB  INFLUENCE     ON  RELIGIOUS    OBLIGATIONS. 

Now,  if  I  should  take  the  names  of  all  the  people  in 
this  audience  this  morning,  and  put  them  on  a  roll  and 
then  I  should  lay  that  roll  back  of  this  organ,  and  a 
hundred  years  from  now  some  one  should  take  that  roll 
and  call  it  from  A  to  Z,  there  would  not  one  of  you 
answer.  I  say  that  any  association  that  makes  me  for- 
get that  fact  is  a  bad  association. 

When  I  go  to  Chicago  I  am  sometimes  perplexed  at 
Buffalo,  as  I  suppose  many  travelers  are,  as  to  whether 
it  is  better  to  take  the  Lake  Shore  route  or  the  Michigan 
central,  equally  expeditious  and  equally  safe,  getting  at 
the  destination  at  the  same  time;  but  suppose  that  I  hear 
that  on  one  route  the  track  is  torn  up,  and  the  bridges 
are  torn  down,  and  the  switches  are  unlocked?  It  will 
not  take  me  a  great  while  to  decide  which  road  to  take. 
Now,  here  are  two  roads  into  the  future,  the  Christian 
and  the  unchristian,  the  safe  and  the  unsafe. 

Any  institution  or  any  association  that  confuses  my 
idea  in  regard  to  that  fact  is  a  bad  institution  and  a  bad 
association.  I  had  prayers  before  I  joined  the  club.  Did 
I  have  them  after?  I  attended  the  house  of  God  before 
I  connected  myself  with  the  club.  Since  that  union  with 
the  club  do  I  absent  myself  from  religious  influences? 

Which  would  you  rather  have  in  your  hand  when  you 
come  to  die,  a  pack  of  cards  or  a  Bible? 

IVhich  would  you    rather  have    pressed  to  your  lips  in 


CLUB-HOUSE  LIFE.  317 

the  closing  moment,  the  cup  of  Belshazzar,ean  wassail  or 
the  chalice  of  Christian  communion? 

Who  would  you  rather  have  for  your  pall-bearers,  the 
elders  of  a  Christian  church,  or  the  companions  whose 
conversation  was  full  of  slang  and  innuendo? 

Who  would  you  rather  have  for  your  eternal  com- 
panions, those  men  who  spend  their  evenings  betting, 
gambling,  swearing,  carousing,  and  telling  vile  stories,  or 
your  little  child,  that  bright  girl  whom  the  Lord  took? 

Oh!  you  would  not  have  been  away  so  much  nights, 
would  your  if  you  had  known  she  was  going  away  so  soon? 

Dear  me;   your  house  has    never  been  the  same  since. 

SHE  WILL  NEVER  GET  OVER  IT. 

Your  wife  has  never  been  brightened  up.  She  has 
not  got  over  it;  she  never  will  get  over  it.  How  long 
the  evenings  are,  with  no  one  to  put  to  bed,  and  no  one 
to  tell  the  beautiful  Bible  story!  What  a  pity  it  is  that 
you  cannot  spend  more  evenings  at  home  trying  to  help 
her  to  bear  that  sorrow!  You  can  never  drown  that 
grief  in  the  wine  cup.  You  can  never  break  away  from 
the  little  arms  that  used  to  be  flung  around  your  neck 
when  she  used  to  say,  "Papa,  do  s-tay  home  to-night — 
do  stay  home  to-night."  You  will  never  be  able  to  wipe 
from  your  lips  the  dying  kiss  of  your  little  girl. 

The  fascination  of  a  dissipating  club-house  is  so  great 
that  sometimes  a  man  has  turned  his  back  on  his  home 
when  his  child  was  dying  of  scarlet  fever.  He  went 
away.  Before  he  got  back  at  midnight  the  eyes  had 
been  closed,  the  undertaker  had  done  his  work,  and  the 
wife,  worn  out  with  three  weeks  watching,  lay  uncon- 
scious in  the  next  room.       Then  there  is  a  rattling  of  the 


31  8  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

night-key  in  the  door,  and  the  returned  father  comes  up 
stairs,  and  he  sees  the  cradle  gone,  and  the  windows  up, 
and  says,  ' 'What's  the  matter?"  In  the  judgement  day 
he  will  find  out  what  was  the  matter. 

A  STRANGE,  BUT  A  STRONG  ROPE. 

Oh!  man  astray,  God  help  you!  I  am  going  to  make 
a  very  stout  rope.  You  know  that  sometimes  a  rope- 
maker  will  take  very  small  threads,  and  wind  them  to- 
gether until,  after  awhile,  they  become  ship-cable.  And 
I  am  going  to  take  some  very  small,  delicate  threads,  and 
wind  them  together  until  they  make  a  very  stout  rope. 
I  will  take  all  the  memories  of  the  marriage  day,  a  thread 
of  laughter,  a  thread  of  light,  a  thread  of  music,  a  thread 
of  banqueting,  a  thread  of  congratulation,  and  I  twist 
them  together,  and  I  have  one  strand.  Then  I  take  a 
thread  of  the  hour  of  the  first  advent  in  your  house,  a 
thread  of  the  darkness  that  preceded,  and  a  thread  of 
the  light  that  followed,  and  a  thread  of  the  beautiful 
scarf  that  little  child  used  to  wear  when  she  bounded  out 
at  eventide  to  greet  you,  and  then  a  thread  of  the  beau- 
tiful dress  in  which  you  laid  her  away  for  the  resurrec- 
tion. And  then  I  twist  all  these  threads  together,  and 
I  have  another  strand.  Then  I  take  a  thread  of  the 
scarlet  robe  of  a  suffering  Christ,  and  a  thread  of  the 
white  raiment  of  your  loved  ones  before  the  throne,  and 
a  string  of  the  heart  cherubic,  and  a  string  of  the  harp 
seraphic,  and  I  twist  them  all  together,  and  I  have  a 
third  strand. 

' 'Oh!"  you  say,  "either  strand  is  strong  enough  to 
hold  fast  a  world." 

Now      I  will  take  these  strands,  and  I  win  twist  them 


CLUB-HOUSE  LIFE.  3  10 

together,  and  one  end  of  that  rope  I  will  fasten,  not  to 
the  communion  table  for  it  shall  be  removed — not  to  a 
pillar  of  the  organ,  for  that  will  crumble  in  the  ages,  but 
I  wind  it  'round  and  'round  the  cross  of  a  sympathizing 
Christ,  and  having  fastened  one  end  of  the  rope  to  the 
cross  I  throw  the  other  end  to  you. 

Lay  hold  of  it!     Pull  for  your  life!     Pull  for  heaven! 


THE  SINS  OF  SUMMER  WATERING  PLACES. 


"A  pool,  which  is  called  in  the  Hebrew  tongue  Bethesda,  having  five 
porches.  In  these  lay  a  multitude  of  blind,  halt,  withered,  waiting  for  the 
moving  of  the  water," — John  v.  2,  3. 

utside  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  there  was  a  sensi- 
tive watering-place,  the  popular'resort  for  invalids. 
To  this  day  there  is  a  dry  basin  of  rock  which  shows 
that  there  must  have  been  a  pool  there  three  hundred  and 
sixty  feet  long,  one  hundred  and  thirty  feet  wide,  and 
seventy-five  feet  deep.  This  pool  was  surrounded  by  five 
piazzas,  or  porches,  or  bathing-houses,  where  the  patients 
tarried  until  the  time  when  they  were  to  step  into  the 
water. 

A  MINIATURE  SARATOGA  AND  LONG  BRANCH. 

So  far  as  reinvigoration  was  concerned,  it  must  have 
been  a  Saratoga  and  a  Long  Branch  on  a  small  scale;  a 
Leamington  and  a  Brighton  combined — medical  and 
therapeutic. 

Tradition  says  that  at  a  certain  season  of  the  year 
there  was  an  officer  of  the  government  who  would  go 
down  to  that  water  and  pour  in  it  some  healing  quality, 
and  after  that  the  people  would  come  and  get  the  medi- 
cation; but  I  prefer  the  plain  statement  of  Scripture, 
that  at  a  certain  season,  an  angel  came  down  and  stirred 
up,  or  troubled  the  water;  and  then  the  people  came  and 
got  the  healing. 

That  angel   of   God  that  stirred  up   the  Judean  water- 

[320] 


WATERING  PLACES.  321 

ing-place  had  his  counterpart  in  the  angel  of  healing  that, 
in  our  day,  steps  into  the  mineral  waters  of  Congress,  or 
Sharon,  or  Sulphur  Springs,  or  into  the  salt  sea  at  Cape 
May  and  Nahant,  where  multitudes  who  are  worn  out 
with  commercial  and  professional  anxieties,  as  well  as 
those  who  are  afflicted  with  rheumatic,  neuralgic,  and 
splenetic  diseases,  go,  and  are  cured  by  the  thousands. 
These  Bethesdas  are  scattered  all  up  and  down  our  coun- 
try, blessed  be  God! 

OFF  FOR  A  VACATION. 

We  are  at  a  season  of  the  year  when  railway  trains 
are  being  laden  with  passengers  and  baggage  on  their 
way  to  the  mountains,  and  the  lakes,  and  the  sea-shore. 
Multitudes  of  our  citizens  are  packing  their  trunks  for  a 
restorative  absence. 

The  city  heats  are  pursuing  the  people  with  torch  and 
fear  of  sunstroke.  The  long  silent  halls  of  sumptuous 
hotels  are  all  abuzz  with  excited  arrivals. 

The  crystalline  surface  of  Winnipiseogee  is  shattered 
with  the  stroke  of  steamers  laden  with  excursionists. 

The  antlers  of  Adirondack  deer  rattle  under  the  shot 
of  city  sportsman.  The  trout  make  fatal  snap  at  the 
hook  of  adroit  sportsmen,  and  toss  their  spotted  brilliance 
into  the  game  basket.  Soon  the  baton  of  the  orchestral 
leader  will  tap  the  music-stand  on  the  hotel  green,  and 
American  life  will  put  on  festal  array,  and  the  rumbling 
of  the  tenpin  alley,  and  the  crack  of  the  ivory  balls  on 
the  green-baized  billiard  tables,  and  the  jolting  of  the 
bar-room  goblets,  and  the  explosive  uncorking  of  cham- 
pagne bottles,  and  the  whirl  and  the  rustle  of  the  ball- 
room dance,  and  the  clattering  hoofs  of  the  race  courses, 


322  EVILS   OF   THE    CITIES 

will  attest  that  the  season  for  the  great  American  water- 
ing-places is  fairly  inaugurated.  Music!  Flute,  and 
drum,  and  cornet-a-piston,  and  clapping  cymbals,  will 
wake  the  echoes  of  the  mountains. 

I  BELIEVE  IN    WATERING  PLACES. 

Glad  I  am  that  fagged-out  American  life,  for  the  most 
part,  will  have  an  opportunity  to  rest,  and  that  nerves 
racked  and  destroyed  will  find  a  Bethesda. 

I  believe  in  watering-places-  I  go  there  sometimes. 
Let  not  the  commercial  firm  begrudge  the  clerk,  or  the 
employer  the  journeyman,  or  the  patient  the  physician, 
or  the  church  its  pastor,  a  season  of  inoccupation.  Lu- 
ther used  to  sport  with  his  children;  Edmund  Burke 
used  to  caress  his  favorite  horse.  Thomas  Chalmers,  in 
the  dark  hour  of  the  Church's  disruption,  played  kite  for 
for  recreation — so  I  was  told  by  his  own  daughter — and 
the  busy  Christ  said  to  the  busy  apostles:  '  'Come  ye  apart 
awhile  into  the  desert,  and  rest  yourselves."  And  I  have 
observed  that  they  who  do  not  know  how  to  rest,  do  not 
know  how  to  work. 

But  I  have  to  declare  this  truth  to-day,  that  some  of 
our  fashionable  watering-places  are  the  temporal  and 
eternal  destruction  of  "a  multitude  that  no  man  can 
number;"  and  amid  the  congratulations  of  this  season, 
and  the  prospect  of  the  departure  of  many  of  you  for  the 
country,  I  must  utter  a  note  of  warning,  plain,  earnest, 
and  unmistakable. 

THE    FIRST  TEMPTATION. 

The  first  temptation  that  is  apt  to  hover  in  this  direc- 
tion, is  to  leave  your  piety  all  at  home.  You  will  send 
the  dog,  and  cat,  and    canary-bird  to   be  well    cared  for 


WATERING    PLACES.  323 

somewhere  else;  but  the  temptation  will  be  to  leave  your 
religion  in  the  room  with  the  blinds  down  and  the  door 
bolted,  and  then  you  will  come  back  in  the  autumn  to  find 
that  it  is  starved  and  suffocated,  lying  stretched  on  the 
rug,  stark  dead. 

There  is  no  surplus  of  piety  at  the  watering-places. 
I  never  knew  any  one  to  grow  very  rapidly  in  grace  at 
the  Catskill  Mountain  House,  or  Sharon  Springs,  or  the 
Falls  of  Montmorency.  It  is  generally  the  case  that  the 
Sabbath  is  more  of  a  carousal  than  any  other  day,  and 
there  are  Sunday  walks,  and  Sunday  rides,  and  Sunday 
excursions.  Elders,  and  deacons,  and  ministers  of  re- 
ligion, who  are  entirely  consistent  at  home,  sometimes 
when  the  Sabbath  dawns  on  them  at  Niagara  Falls,  or 
the  White  Mountains,  take  the  day  to  themselves.  If 
they  go  to  the  church,  it  is  apt  to  be  a  sacred  parade, 
and  the  discourse,  instead  of  being  a  plain  talk  about  the 
soul,  is  apt  to  be  what  is  called  a  crack  sermon — that  is, 
some  discourse  picked  out  of  the  effusions  of  the  year  as 
the  one  most  adapted  to  excite  admiration;  and  in  those 
churches,  from  the  way  the  ladies  hold  their  fans,  you 
know  that  they  are  not  so  much  impressed  with  the 
heat  as  with  the  picturesqueness  of  half  disclosed  features. 

Four  puny  souls  stand  in  the  organ  loft  and  squall  a 
tune  that  nobody  knows,  and  worshippers,  with  two 
thousand  dollars  worth  of  diamonds  on  the  right  hand, 
drop  a  cent  into  the  poor-box,  and  then  the  benediction 
is  pronounced  and  the  farce  is  ended.  The  toughest 
thing  1  ever  tried  to  do  was  to  be  good  at  a  watering- 
place. 

The  air  is   bewitched  with  the    '  'world,  the  flesh,  and 


3  24  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES. 

devil."  There  are  Christians  who,  in  three  or  four  weeks 
in  such  a  place,  have  had  such  terrible  rents  made  in 
their  Christian  robe,  that  they  had  to  keep  darning  it 
until  Christmas  to  get  it  mended! 

The  health  of  a  great  many  people  makes  an  annual 
visit  to  some  mineral  spring  an  absolute  necessity;  but, 
my  dear  people,  take  your  Bible  along  with  you,  and  take 
an  hour  for  secret  prayer  ever  day,  though  you  be  sur- 
rounded by  guffaw  and  saturnalia.  Keep  holy  the  Sab- 
bath, though  they  deride  you  as  a  bigoted  Puritan. 
Stand  off  from  John  Morrissey's  gambling  hell,  and  those 
other  institutions  which  propose  to  imitate  on  this  side 
the  water  the  iniquities  of  Baden-Baden.  Let  your 
moral  and  immortal  health  keep  pace  with  your  physical 
recuperation  and  remember  that  all  the  waters  of  Haw- 
thorne, and  sulphur  and  chalybeate  springs  cannot  do 
you  so  much  good  as  the  mineral,  healing,  perrennial 
flood  that  breaks  forth  from  the  "Rock  of  Ages."  This 
may  be  your  last  summer.  If  so,  make  it  a  fit  vestibule 
of  heaven. 

THE  HORSE  RACING  BUSINESS. 

Another  temptation,  however,  around  nearly  all  our 
watering-places,  is  the  horse-racing  business.  We  all 
admire  the  horse;  but  we  do  not  think  that  its  beauty,  or 
speed,  ought  to  be  cultured  at  the  expense  of  human 
degradation.  The  horse-race  is  not  of  such  importance 
as  the  human  race.  The  Bible  intimates  that  a  man  is 
better  than  a  sheep,  and  I  suppose  he  is  better  than  a 
horse,  though,  like  Job's  stallion,  his  neck  is  clothed  with 
thunder. 

Horse    races  in    olden  times    were  under   the  ban  of 


WATERING  PLACES.  325 

Christian  people;  and  in  our  day  the  same  institution 
has  come  up  under  fictitious  names.  And  it  is  called  a 
"Summer  Meeting,"  almost  suggestive  of  postive  relig- 
ious exercises.  And  it  is  called  an  "Agricultural  Fair," 
suggestive  of  everything  that  is  improving  in  the  art  of 
farming.  But  under  these  deceptive  titles  are  the  same 
cheating,  and  the  same  betting,  and  the  same  drunken- 
ness, and  the  same  vagabondage,  and  the  same  abomina- 
tions that  were  to  be  found  under  the  old  horse-racing 
system. 

I  never  knew  a  man  yet  who  could  give  himself  to  the 
pleasures  of  the  turf  for  a  long  reach  of  time  and  not  be 
battered  in  morals.  They  hook  up  their  spanking  team, 
and  put  on  their  sporting  cap,  and  light  their  cigar,  and 
take  the  reins,  and  dash  down  the  road  to  perdition! 

The  great  day  at  Saratoga  and  Long  Branch,  and 
Cape  May,  and  nearly  all  the  other  watering-places,  is 
the  day  of  the  races.  The  hotels  are  thronged,  every 
kind  of  equipage  is  taken  up  at  an  almost  fabulous  price; 
and  there  are  many  respectable  people  mingling  with 
jockies  and  gamblers,  and  libertines,  and  foul-mouthed 
men  and  flashy  women.  The  bar-tender  stirs  up  the 
brandy  smash.  The  bets  run  high.  The  greenhorns, 
supposing  all  is  fair,  put  in  their  money,  soon  enough  to 
lose  it. 

Three  weeks  before  the  race  takes  place  the  struggle 
is  decided,  and  the  men  in  the  secret  know  on  which 
steed  to  bet  their  money.  The  two  men  on  the  horses 
riding  around,  long  before  arranged  who  shall  beat. 
Leaning  from  the  stand  or  from  the  carriage,  are  men 
and   women  so    absorbed  in  the  struggle  of    bone    and 


326  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

muscle,  and  mettle,  that  they  make  a  grand  harvest  for 
pickpockets  who  carty  off  the  pocket-book  and  portmon- 
naies. 

Men  looking  on  see  only  two  horses  with  two  riders 
flying  around  the  ring;  but  there  is  many  a  man  on  that 
stand  whose  honor,  and  domestic  happiness,  and  fortune 
— white  mane,  white  foot,  white  flank — are  in  the  ring, 
racing  with  inebriety,  and  with  fraud,  and  with  profanity, 
and  with  ruin — black  neck,  black  foot,  black  flank.  Neck 
and  neck,  they  go  in  that  moral  Epsom.  White  horse 
of  honor;  black  horse  of  ruin. 

Death  says:    "I  will  bet  on  the  black  horse." 

Spectator  says:    "I  will  bet  on  the  white  horse." 

The  white  horse  of  honor  a  little  way  ahead. 

The  black  horse  of  ruin,  Satan  mounted,  all  the  time 
gaining  on  him. 

Spectator  breathless.  Put  on  the  lash.  Dig  in  the 
spurs.     There!     They  are  past  the  stand.      Sure. 

Just  as  I  expected  it.  The  black  horse  of  ruin  has 
won  the  race,  and  all  the  galleries  of  darkness  "huzza! 
huzza!"    and  the  devils  come  in  to  pick  up  their  wagers. 

Ah,  my^friends,  have  nothing  to  do  with  horse-racing 
dissipations  this  summer.  Long  ago  the  English  gov- 
ernment got  through  looking  to  the  turf  for  the  dragoon 
and  light  cavalry  horse.  They  found  the  turf  depreciates 
the  stock;  and  it  is  yet  worse  for  men. 

Thomas  Hughes,  the  member  of  Parliament,  and  the 
author  known  all  the  world  over,  hearing  that  a  new  turf 
enterprise  was  being  started  in  this  country,  wrote  a 
letter  in  which  he  said:  "Heaven  help  you,  then;  for  of 
all  the  cankers  of  our  old  civilization,  there  is  nothing  in 


WATERING  PLACES.  327 

this  country  approaching  in  unblushing  meanness,  in  ras- 
cality holding  its  head  high,  to  this  belauded  institution 
of  the  British  turf." 

Another  famous  sportsman  writes:  "How  many  fine 
domains  have  been  shared  among  these  hosts  of  rapacious 
sharks  during  the  last  two  hundred  years;  and  unless  the 
system  be  altered,  how  many  more  are  doomed  to  fall  in 
to  the  same  gulf!" 

The  Duke  of  Hamilton,  through  his  horse-racing  pro- 
clivities, in  three  years  got  through  his  entire  fortune  of 
£70,000;  and  I  will  say  that  some  of  you  are  being  un- 
dermined by  it.  With  the  bull-fights  of  Spain  and  the 
bear-baitings  of  the  pit,  may  the  Lord  God  annihilate 
the  infamous  and  accursed  horse-racing  of  England  and 
America. 

DISSIPATION  AND  DYSPEPSIA. 

I  go  further  and  speak  of  another  temptation  that 
hovers  over  the  watering  place;  and  this  is  the  tempta- 
tion to  sacrifice  physical  strength.  The  modern  Bethes- 
da,  just  like  this  Bethesda  of  the  text,  was  intended  to 
recuperate  the  physical  health;  and  yet  how  many  come 
from  the  watering-places,  their  health  absolutely  de- 
stroyed. 

New  York  and  Brooklyn  idiots,  boasting  of  having 
imbibed  twenty  glasses  of  congress  water  before  break- 
fast. Families  accustomed  to  going  to  bed  at  ten  o'clock 
at  night,  gossiping  until  one  or  two  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. Dyspeptics,  usually  very  cautious  about  their 
health,  mingling  ice-creams,  and  lemons,  and  lobster- 
salads,  and  cocoanuts  until  the  gastric  juices  lift  up  all 
their  voices  of  lamentation  and  protest.      Delicate  women 


328  EVILS  OF    THE    CITIES. 

and  brainless  young  men  chassezing  themselves  into  ver- 
tigo and  catalepsy.  Thousands  of  men  and  women 
coming  back  from  our  watering-places  in  the  autumn 
with  the  foundations  laid  for  ailments  that  will  last  them 
all  their  life  long.  You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  this 
is  the  simple  truth. 

In  the  summer,  you  say  to  your  good  health,  ''Good- 
bye; I  am  going  to  have  a  good  time  for  a  little  while;  I 
will  be  very  glad  to  see  you  again  in  the  autumn." 

Then  in  the  autumn  when  you  are  hard  at  work  in  your 
office,  or  store,  or  shop,  or  counting-room,  Good  Health 
will  come  in  and  say:    -'Good-bye;  I  am  going." 

You  say:    '-Where  are  you  going?" 

"O!"  says  Good  Health,  "I  am  going  to  take  a  vaca- 
tion." 

It  is  a  poor  rule  that  will  not  work  both  ways,  and 
your  good  health  will  leave  you  choleric,  and  splenetic, 
and  exhausted.  You  coquetted  with  your  good  health  in 
the  summer-time,  and  your  good  health  is  coquetting 
with  you  in  the  winter-time.  A  fragment  of  Paul's  charge 
to  the  jailer  would  be  an  appropriate  inscription  for  the 
hotel  register  in  ever  watering-place:  "Do  thyself  no 
harm." 

TEMPTATION  TO    HASTY  MARRIAGES. 

Another  temptation  hovering  around  the  watering- 
place  is  to  the  formation  of  hasty  and  life-long  alliances. 
The  watering-places  are  responsible  for  more  of  the  do- 
mestic infelicities  of  this  country  than  all  other  things 
combined.  Society  is  so  artificial  there  that  no  sure 
judgment  of  character  can  be  formed.  They  who  form 
companionships  amid  such   circumstances,  go  into  a  lot- 


WATERING  PLACES.  329 

terv  where  there  are  twenty  blanks  to  one  prize.  In  the 
severe  tug  of  life  you  want  more  than  glitter  and  splash. 
Life  is  not  a  ball-room,  where  the  music  decides  the  step, 
and  bow,  and  prance,  and  graceful  swing  of  long  trail 
can  make  up  for  strong  common  sense.  You  might  as 
well  go  among  the  gaily-painted  yachts  of  a  summer 
regatta  to  find  war  vessels,  as  to  go  among  the  bright 
spray  of  the  summer  watering-place  to  find  character 
that  can  stand  the  test  of  the  great  struggle  of  human 
life. 

Ah,  in  the  battle  of  life  you  want  a  stronger  weapon 
than  a  lace  fan  or  a  croquet  mallet!  The  load  of  life  is 
so  heavy  that  in  order  to  draw  it  you  want  a  team 
stronger  than  one  made  up  of  a  masculine  grasshopper 
and  a  feminine  butterfly. 

FOPS  WITH  THEIR   "AHs!  OHS!  AND  HE  HES!" 

If  there  is  any  man  in  the  community  that  excites  my 
contempt,  and  that  ought  to  excite  the  contempt  of  every 
man  and  woman,  it  is  the  soft-handed,  soft-headed  fop, 
who,  perfumed  until  the  air  is  actually  sick,  spends  his 
summer  in  taking  killing  attitudes,  and  waving  sentimen- 
tal adieus,  and  talking  infinitesimal  nothings,  and  finding 
his  heaven  in  the  set  of  a  lavendar  kid-glove.  Boots  as 
tight  as  an  inquisition.  Two  hours  of  consummate  skill 
exhibited  in  the  tie  of  a  flaming  cravat.  His  conversa- 
tion made  up  of  "Ahs!"  and  "Ohs!"  and  "He  hes!"  It 
would  take  five  hundred  of  them  stewed  down  to  make  a 
teaspoonful  of  calf's-foot  jelly. 

There  is  only  one  counterpart  to  such  a  man  as  that, 
and  that  is  the  frothy  young  woman  at  the  watering- 
place;    her  conversation    made  up  of  French  moonshine; 


330  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

what  she  had  on  her  head  only  equalled  by  what  she  had 
on  her  back;  useless  ever  since  she  was  born,  and  to  be 
useless  until  she  is  dead;  and  what  they  will  do  with 
her  in  the  next  world  I  do  not  know,  except  to  set  her 
up  on  the  banks  of  the  River  of  Life,  for  eternity,  to 
look  sweet!  God  intends  us  to  admire  music,  and  fair 
faces  and  graceful  step;  but  amid  the  heartlessness,  and 
the  inflation  and  the  fantastic  influences  of  our  modern 
watering-places,  beware  how  you  make  life-long  cove- 
nants. 

Another  temptation  that  will  hover  over  the  watering- 
place  is  that  to  baneful  literature.  Almost  every  one 
starting  off  for  the  summer  takes  some  reading  matter. 
It  is  a  book  out  of  the  library,  or  off  the  book-stand,  or 
bought  of  the  boy  hawking  books  through  the  cars.  I 
really  believe  there  is  more  pestiferous  trash  read  among 
the  intelligent  classes  in  July  and  August  than  in  all  the 
other  ten  months  of  the  year.  Men  and  women  who  at 
home  would  not  be  satisfied  with  a  book  that  was -not 
really  sensible,  I  found  sitting  on  hotel  piazza,  or  under 
the  trees,  reading  books,  the  index  of  which  would  make 
them  blush  if  they  knew  that  you  knew  what  the  book 
was. 

"O,"  they  say,  '-you  must  have  intellectual  recrea- 
tion." 

Yes.  There  is  no  need  that  you  take  along  into  a 
watering-place,  "Hamilton's  Metaphysics,"  or  some 
thunderous  discourse  on  the  eternal  decrees,  or  Faraday's 
Philosophy."  There  are  many  easy  books  that  aiv  good. 
You  might  as  well  say: 

"I  propose    now  to  give    a   little  rest  to    my  digestive 


WATERING  PLACES.  33  I 

organs,  and  instead  of  eating  heavy  meat  and  vegetables, 
I  will,  for  a  little  while,  take  lighter  food — a  little 
strychnine'and  a  few  grains  of  ratsbane." 

Literary  poison  in  August  is  as  bad  as  literary  poison 
in  December.  Mark  that.  Do  not  let  the  frogs  and  the 
lice  of  a  corrupt  printing-press  jump  and  crawl  into  your 
Saratoga  trunk  or  White  Mountain  valise.  Would  it 
not  be  an  awful  thing  for  you  to  be  struck  with  light- 
ning some  day  when  you  had  in  your  hand  one  of  these 
paper-covered  romances — the  hero  a  Parisian  roue,  the 
heroine  an  unprincipled  flirt — chapters  in  the  book  that 
you  would  not  read  to  your  children  at  the  rate  of  a  hun- 
dred dollars  a  line. 

Throw  out  all  that  stuff  from  your  summer  baggage. 
Are  there  not  good  books  that  are  easy  to  read — books 
of  entertaining  travel;  books  of  congenial  history;  books 
of  pure  fun;  books  of  poetry,  ringing  with  merry  canto; 
books  of  fine  engraving;  books  that  will  rest  the  mind  as 
well  as  purify  the  heart  and  elevate  the  whole  life?  My 
hearers,  there  will  not  be  an  hour  between  this  and  the 
day  of  your  death  when  you  can  afiord  to  read  a  book 
lacking  in  moral  principle. 

Another  temptation  hovering  all  around  our  watering- 
places,  is  to  intoxicating  beverage.  I  am  told  that  it  is 
becoming  more  and  more  fashionable  for  women  to  drink; 
and  it  is  not  very  long  ago  that  a  lady  of  great  respecta- 
bility, In  this  city,  having  taken  two  glasses  of  wine 
away  from  home,  became  violent,  and  her  friends, 
ashamed,  forsook  her,  and  she  was  carried  to  a  police 
station,  and  afterward  to  her  disgraced  home. 

I  care    not  how    well   a  woman  may   dress,  if  she   has 


332  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES. 

taken  enough  of  wine  to  flush  her  cheek  and  put  a  glassi- 
ness  on  her  eye,  she  is  intoxicated.  She  may  be  handed 
into  a  2500  dollar  carriage,  and  have  diamonds  enough 
to  confound  the  Tiffany's — she  is  intoxicated.  She  may 
be  a  graduate  of  Packer  Institute,  and  the  daughter  of 
some  man  in  danger  of  being  nominated  for  the  Presi- 
dency— she  is  drunk.  You  may  have  a  larger  vocabu- 
lary than  I  have,  and  you  may  say  in  regard  to  her  that 
she  is  "convivial,"  or  she  is  "merry,"  or  she  is  "festive," 
or  she  is  "exhilarated;"  but  you  cannot  with  all  your  gar- 
lands of  verbiage,  cover  up  the  plain  fact  that  it  is  an  old 
fashioned  case  of  drunk. 

Now  the  watering-places  are  full  of  temptations  to  men 
and  women  to  tipple. 

At  the  close  of  the  ten-pin  or  billiard  game,  they  tipple. 

At  the  close  of  the  cotillion,  they  tipple. 

Seated  on  the  piazza  cooling  themselves  off  they 
tipple. 

The  tinged  glasses  come  around  with  bright  straws,  and 
they  tipple. 

First,  they  take  "light  wines"  as  they  call  them;  but 
"light  wines,"  are  heavy  enough  to  debase  the  appetite. 
There  is  not  a  very  long  road  between  champagne  at  five 
dollars  a  bottle  and  whisky  at  five  cents  a  glass. 

Satan  has  three  or  four  grades  down  which  he  takes 
men  to  destruction.  One  man  he  takes  up,  and  through 
one  spree  pitches  him  into  eternal  darkness.  That  is  a 
rare  case.  Very  seldom,  indeed,  can  you  find  a  man  who 
will  be  such  a  fool  as  that. 

Satan  will  take  another  man  to  a  grade,  to  a  descent 
at  an  angle  about  like  the  Pennsylvania  coal-shute,  or  the 


WATERING  PLACES.  3331 

Mount  Washington  rail  track,  and  shove  him   off.        But 
that  is  very  rare. 

ON  THE    DOWN  GRADE. 

When  a  man  goes  down  to  destruction,  Satan  brings 
him  to  a  plane.  It  is  almost  a  level.  The  depression 
is  so  slight  that  you  can  hardly  see  it.  The  man  does 
not  actually  know  that  he  is  on  the  down  grade,  and  it 
tips  only  a  little  toward  darkness — just  a  little.  And 
the  first  mile  it  is  claret,  and  the  second  mile  it  is  sherry, 
and  the  third  mile  it  is  punch,  and  the  fourth  mile  it  is 
ale,  and  the  fifth  mile  it  is  porter,  and  the  sixth  mile  it 
is  brandy,  and  then  it  gets  steeper,  and  steeper,  and 
steeper,  and  the  man  gets  frightened,  and  says: 

"O,  let  me  get  off." 

"No,"  says  the  conductor,  "this  is  an  express-train, 
and  it  don't  stop  until  it  gets  to  the  Grand  Central  depot 
of  Smashupton!" 

Ah,  "Look  not  upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red,  when  it 
giveth  its  color  in  the  cup,  when  it  moveth  itself  aright. 
At  the  last  it  biteth  like  a  serpent,  and  stingeth  like  an 
adder."  And  if  any  young  man  of  my  congregation 
should  get  astray  this  summer  in  this  direction,  it  will  not 
be  because  I  have  not  given  him  fair  warning. 

My  friends,  whether  you  tarry  at  home — which  will  be 
quite  as  safe  and  perhaps  quite  as  comfortable — or  go 
into  the  country,  arm  yourself  against  temptation.  The 
grace  of  God  is  the  only  safe  shelter,  whether  in  town  or 
country.  There  are  watering-places  accessible  'to  all  of 
us.  You  cannot  open  a  book  of  the  Bible  without  find- 
ing out  some  such  watering-place.  Fountains  open  for 
sin  and  uncleanness.     Wells  of  salvation.      Streams  from 


334  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

Lebanon.  A  flood  struck  out  of  the  rock  by  Moses. 
Fountains  in  the  wilderness  discovered  by  Hagar.  Water 
to  drink  and  water  to  bathe  in.  The  river  of  God  which 
is  full  of  water.  Water  of  which  if  a  man  drink,  he 
shall  never  thirst.  Wells  of  water  in  the  Valley  of  Baca. 
Living  fountains  of  water.  A  pure  river  of  water  as 
clear  as  crystal  from  under  the  throne  of  God.  These 
are  watering-places  accessible  to  all  of  us.  We  do  not 
have  a  laborious  packing  up  before  we  start — only  the 
throwing  away  of  our  transgressions.  No  expensive 
hotel  bills  to  pay;  it  is  "without  money  and  without 
price."  No  long  and  dusty  travel  before  we  get  there; 
it  is  only  one  step  away. 

In  California,  in  five  minutes  I  walked  around  and 
saw  ten  fountains  all  bubbling  up  into  eternal  life — heal- 
ing and  therapeutic. 

A  chemist  will  go  to  one  of  these  summer  watering- 
places  and  take  the  water,  and  analyze  it,  and  tell  you 
that  it  contains  so  much  of  iron  and  so  much  of  soda, 
and  so  much  of  lime,  and  so  much  of  magnesia.  I  come 
to  this  Gospel  well,  this  living  fountain,  and  analyze  the 
water;  and  I  find  that  its  ingredients  are  peace,  pardon, 
forgiveness,  hope,  comfort,  life,  heaven.  "Ho,  every 
one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye"  to  this  watering-place. 

Crowd  around  this  Bethesda  this  morning.  O,  you 
sick,  you  lame,  you  troubled,  you  dying — crowd  around 
this  Bethesda.  Step  in  it,  oh,  step  in  it!  The  angel  of 
the  covenant  this  morning  stirs  the  water!  Why  do  you 
not  step  in  it?  Some  of  you  are  too  weak  to  take  a  step 
in  that  direction.  Then  we  take  you  up  in  the  arms  of 
our  closing  prayer,  and  plunge  you  clean  under  the  wavef 


WATERING  PLACES.  335 

hoping  that  the  cure  may  be  as  sudden  and  as  radical  as 
with  Captain  Naaman,  who,  blotched  and  carbuncled, 
stepped  into  the  Jordan,  and  aiter  the  seventh  dive  came 
up,  his  skin  roseate  complexioned  as  the  flesh  of  a  little 
child. 


THE  WOMAN  OF  PLEASURE. 


"She  that  liveth  in  pleasure  is  dead  while  she  liveth." — I,  Tim.v,  6 

>t  is  a  strong  way  of  putting  the  truth,  that  a  woman 
who  seeks  in  worldly  advantage  her  chief  enjoyment, 
^will  come  to  dissapointment  and  death. 

My  friends,  you  all  want  to  be  happy.  You  have  had 
a  great  many  recipes  by  which  it  is  proposed  to  give  you 
satisfaction — solid  satisfaction.  At  times  you  feel  a 
thorough  unrest.  You  know  as  well  as  older  people  what 
it  is  to  be  depressed.  As  dark  shadows  sometimes  fall 
upon  the  geography  of  the  school-girl  as  on  the  page  of 
the  spectacled  philosopher.  I  have  seen  as  cloudy  days 
in  May  as  in  November.  There  are  no  deeper  sighs 
breathed  by  the  grandmother  than  by  the  granddaughter. 

I  correct  the  popular  impression  that  people  are  happier 
in  childhood  and  youth  than  they  ever  will  be  again.  If 
we  live  aright,  the  older  we  are  the  happier.  The 
happiest  woman  that  I  ever  knew  was  a  Christian  octo- 
genarian; her  hair  white  as  white  could  be;  the  sunlight 
of  heaven  late  in  the  afternoon  gilding  the  peaks  of  snow. 
I  have  to  say  to  a  great  many  of  the  young  people  of  this 
church  that  the  most  miserable  time  you  are  ever  to  have 
is  just  now. 

As  you  advance  in  life,  as  you  come  out  into  the  world 
and  have  your  head  and  heart  all  full  of  good,  honest, 
practical,  Christian  work,  then  you  will  know  what  it  is 
to  begin  to  be  happy.     There  are  those  who  would  have 

[336] 


THE  WOMAN    OF   PLEASURE.  337 

us  believe  that  life  is  chasing  thistle-down  and  grasping 
bubbles.  We  have  not  found  it  so.  To  many  of  us  it 
has  been  discovering  diamonds  larger  than  the  Kohinoor, 
and  I  think  that  our  joy  will  continue  to  increase  until 
nothing  short  of  the  everlasting  jubilee  of  heaven  will  be 
able  to  express  it. 

Horatio  Greenough,  at  the  close  of  the  hardest  life  a 
man  ever  lives — the  life  of  an  American  artist — wrote: 
"I  don't  want  to  leave  this  world  until  I  give  some  sign 
that,  born  by  the  grace  of  God  in  this  land,  I  have  found 
life  to  be  a  very  cheerful  thing,  and  not  the  dark  and 
bitter  thing  with  which  my  early  prospects  were 
clouded." 

Albert  Barnes,  the  good  Christian,  known  the  world 
over,  stood  in  his  pulpit  in  Philadelphia,  at  seventy  or 
eighty  years  of  age,  and  said:  "This  world  is  so  very 
attractive  to  me,  I  am  very  sorry  I  shall  have  to  leave  it." 

I  know  that  Solomon  said  some  very  dolorous  things 
about  this  world,  and  three  times  declared:  "Vanity  of 
vanities,  all  is  vanity."  I  suppose  it  was  a  reference  to 
those  times  in  his  career  when  his  seven  hundred  wives 
almost  pestered  the  life  out  of  him!  But  I  would  rather 
turn  to  the  description  he  has  given  of  religion,  when  he 
says  in  another  place:  "Her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasant- 
ness, and  all  her  paths  are  peace."  It  is  reasonable  to 
expect  it  will  be  so. 

The  longer  the  fruit  hangs  on  the  tree,  the  riper  and 
more  mellow  it  ought  to  grow.  You  plant  one  grain  of 
corn,  and  it  will  send  up  a  stalk  with  two  ears,  each 
having  nine  hundred  and  fifty  grains,  so  that  one  grain 
planted  will  produce  ninteen  hundred  grains.      And  ought 


33^  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

not  the  implantation  of  a  grain  of  Christian  principle  in 
a  youthful  soul  develop  into  a  large  crop  of  gladness  on 
earth  and  to  a  harvest  of  eternal  joy  in  heaven?  Hear 
me,  then,  this  morning,  while  I  discourse  upon  some  of 
the  mistakes  which  young  people  make  in  regard  to  hap- 
piness, and  point  out  to  the  young  women  of  this  church 
what  I  consider  to  be  the  sources  of  complete  satisfac- 
tion. 

SOCIAL  POSITION  CANNOT  GIVE  TRUE  HAPPINESS. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  I  advise  you  not  to  build  your 
happiness  upon  mere  social  position.  Persons  at  your 
age,  looking  off  upon  life,  are  apt  to  think  that  if,  by 
some  stroke  of  what  is  called  good-luck,  you  could  arrive 
in  an  elevated  and  affluent  position,  a  little  higher  than 
that  in  which  God  has  called  you  to  live,  you  would  be 
completely  happy.  Infinite  mistake!  The  palace  floor 
of  Ahasuerus  is  red  with  the  blood  of  Vashti's  broken 
heart.  There  have  been  no  more  scalding  tears  wept 
than  those  which  coursed  the  cheek  of  Josephine. 

If  the  sobs  of  unhappy  womanhood  in  the  great  cities 
could  break  through  the  tapestried  wall,  that  sob  would 
came  along  your  street  to-day  like  the  simoon  of  the 
desert.  Sometimes  I  have  heard  in  the  rustling  of  the 
robes  on  the  city  pavement  the  hiss  of  the  adders  that 
followed  in  the  wake.  You  have  come  out  from  your 
home,  and  you  have  looked  up  at  the  great  house,  and 
covet  a  life  under  those  arches,  when,  perhaps,  at  that 
very  moment,  within  that  house,  there  may  have  been 
the  wringing  of  hands,  the  start  of  horror,  and  the  very 
agony  of  hell. 

I  knew  such   a  one.        Her   father's    house    was  plain, 


THE  WOMAN  OF    PLEASURE.  339 

most  of  the  people  who  came  there  were  plain;  but,  by  a 
change  in  fortune  such  as  sometimes  comes,  a  hand  had 
been  offered  that  led  her  into  a  brilliant  sphere.  All  the 
neighbors  congratulated  her  upon  her  grand  prospects; 
but  what  an  exchange! 

On  her  side  it  was  a  heart  full  of  generous  impulse  and 
affection. 

On  his  side  it  was  a  soul  dry  and  withered  as  the 
stubble  of  the  field. 

On  her  side  it  was  a  father's  house,  where  God  was 
honored  and  the  Sabbath  life  flooded  the  rooms  with  the 
very  mirth  of  heaven. 

On  his  side  it  was  a  gorgeous  residence,  and  the  com- 
ing of  mighty  men  to  be  entertained  there;  but  within  it 
were  revelry  and  godlessness.  Hardly  had  the  orange 
blossoms  of  the  marriage  feast  lost  their  fragrance,  than 
the  night  of  discontent  began  to  cast  here  and  there  its 
shadow.  The  ring  on  the  finger  was  only  one  link  of  an 
iron  chain  that  was  to  bind  her  eternally  captive.  Cruel- 
ties and  unkindness  changed  all  those  splendid  trappings 
into  a  hollow  mockery.  The  platters  of  solid  silver,  the 
caskets  of  pure  gold,  the  head-dress  of  gleaming  dia- 
monds, were  there;  but  no  God,  no  peace,  no  kind 
words,  no  Christian  sympathy.  The  festive  music  that 
broke  on  the  captive's  ear  turned  out  to  be  a  dirge,  and 
the  wreath  in  the  plush  was  a  reptile  coil,  and  the  up- 
holstery that  swayed  in  the  wind  was  the  wing  of  a  de- 
stroying angel,  and  the  bead-drops  on  the  pitcher  were 
the  sweat  of  everlasting  despair. 

O,  how  many  rivalries  and  unhappinesses  among  those 
who  seek  in  social  life  their  chief  happiness!      It  matters 


34°  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

not  how  fine  you  have  things;  there  are  other  people  who 
have  it  finer. 

Taking  out  your  watch  you  tell  the  hour  of  day,  some 
one  will  correct  your  time-piece  by  pulling  out  a  watch 
more  richly  chased  and  jeweled. 

Ride  in  a  carriage  that  cost  you  eight  hundred  dollars, 
and  before  you  get  around  the  park  you  will  meet  one 
that  cost  two  thousand  dollars. 

Have  on  your  wall  a  picture  by  Copley,  and  before 
night  you  will  hear  of  some  one  who  has  a  picture  fresh 
from  the  studio  of  Church  or  Bierstadt.  All  that  this 
world  can  do  for  you  in  ribbons,  in  silver,  in  gold,  in 
Axminster  plush,  in  Gobelin  tapestry,  in  wide  halls,  in 
lordly  acquaintanceship,  will  not  give  you  the  ten-thou- 
sandth part  of  a  grain  of  solid  satisfaction. 

The  English  lord,  moving  in  the  very  highest  sphere, 
was  one  day  found  seated,  with  his  chin  on  his  hand, 
and  his  elbow  on  the  window-sill,  looking  out,  and  say- 
ing: "O,  I  wish  I  could  exchange  places  with  that  dog.'' 
Mere  social  position  will  never  give  happiness  to  a 
woman's  soul.  I  have  walked  through  the  halls  of  those 
who  despise  the  common  people;  I  have  sat  at  their  ban- 
quets: I  have  had  their  friendship;  yea,  I  have  heard 
from  their  own  lips  the  story  of  their  disquietude;  and  I 
tell  the  young  women  of  this  church  that  they  who  build 
on  mere  social  position  their  soul's  immortal  happiness, 
are  building  on  the  sand. 

BEAUTY  CANNOT    INSURE  HAPPINESS. 

I  go  further,  and  advise  you  not  to  depend  for  enjoy- 
ment upon  mere  personal  attractions.  It  would  be  sheer 
hypocrisy,  because  we  may  not  have    it  ourselves,  to  de- 


THE  WOMAN    OF  PLEASURE.  34 1 

spise,  or  affect  to  despise,  beauty  in  others.  When  God 
gives  it,  He  gives  it  as  a  blessing  and  as  a  means  of  use- 
fulness. 

David  and  his  army  were  coming  down  from  #the 
mountains  to  destroy  Nabal  and  his  flocks  and  vineyards. 
The  beautiful  Abigail,  the  wife  of  Nabal,  went  out  to  ar- 
rest him  when  he  came  down  from  the  mountains,  and 
she  succeeded.  Coming  to  the  foot  of  the  hill,  she  knelt. 
David  with  his  army  of  sworn  men  came  down  over  the 
cliffs,  and  when  he  saw  her  kneeling  at  the  foot  of  the 
hill,  he  cried: 

"Halt!"  to  his  men,  and  the  caves  echoed  it:  "Halt! 
halt!" 

That  one  beautiful  woman  kneeling  at  the  foot  of  the 
cliffs  had  arrested  all  those  armed  troops.  A  dew-drop 
dashed  back  Niagara. 

The  Bible  sets  before  us  the  portraits  of  Sarah  and 
Rebecca,  and  Abishag,  Absalom's  sister,  and  Job's 
daughters,  and  says:  "They  were  fair  to  look  upon." 
By  out-door  exercise,  and  by  skillful  arrangement  cf  ap- 
parel, let  woman  make  themselves  attractive. 

The  sloven  has  only  one  mission,  and  that  to  excite 
ou  loathing  and  disgust  But  alas!  for  those  who  de- 
pen  upon  personal  charms  for  their  happiness.  Beauty 
is  such  a  subtle  thing,  it  does  not  seem  to  depend  upon 
facial  proportions  or  upon  the  sparkle  of  the  eye,  or  up- 
on the  flush  of  the  cheek.  You  sometimes  find  it  among 
irregular  features  It  is  the  soul  shining  through  the 
face  that  makes  one  beautiful.  But  alas!  for  those  who 
depend  upon  mere  personal  charms.  They  will  come 
to  dissapointment  and  to    a  great    fret.        There    are  so 


342  EVILS  OF  THECITIES. 

many  different  opinions  about  what  are  personal  charms; 
and  then  sickness,  and  trouble,  and  age,  do  make  such 
ravages.  The  poorest  god  that  a  woman  ever  worships 
is  her  own  face. 

The  saddest  sight  in  all  the  world  is  a  woman  who 
has  built  everything  on  good  looks,  when  the  charms  be- 
gin to  vanish.  O,  how  they  try  to  cover  the  wrinkles 
and  hide  the  ravages  of  time!  When  Time,  with  iron- 
shod  feet,  steps  on  a  face,  the  hoof-marks  remain,  and 
you  cannot  hide  them.  It  is  silly  to  try  to  hide  them. 
I  think  the  most  repulsive  fool  in  all  the  world  is  an  old 
fool! 

Why,  my  friends,  should  you  be  ashamed  to  be  getting 
old?  It  is  a  sign — it  is  prima  facie  evidence,  that  you 
have  behaved  tolerable  well  or  you  would  not  have  lived 
to  this  time.  The  grandest  thing,  I  think,  is  eternity, 
and  that  is  made  up  of  countless  years.  When  the 
Bible  would  set  forth  the  attractiveness  of  Jesus  Christ, 
it  says:  "His  hair  was  white  as  snow. "  But  when  the 
color  goes  from  the  cheek,  and  the  lustre*  from  the  eye, 
and  the  spring  from  the  step,  and  the  gracefulness  from 
the  gait,  alas!  for  those  who  have  built  their  time  and 
there  eternity  upon  good  looks.  But  all  the  passage  of 
years  cannot  take  out  of  one's  face  benignity,  and  kind- 
ness, and  compassion,  and  faith,  i  Culture  your  heart 
and  you  culture  your  face.  The  brightest  glory  that  ever 
beamed  from  a  woman's  face  is  the  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

A  WAR    INCIDENT. 

In  the  last  war,  two  hundred  wounded  soldiers  came  to 
Philadelphia   one  night,  and  came  unheralded,  and  they 


THE    WOMAN  OF  PLEASURE.  343 

had  to  extemporize  a  hospital  for  them,  and  the  Christian 
women  of  my  church,  and  of  other  churches,  went  out 
that  night  to  take  care  of  the  poor  wounded  fellows. 
That  night  I  saw  a  Christian  woman  go  through  the 
wards  of  the  hospitals,  her  sleeves  rolled  up,  ready  for 
hard  work,  her  hair  dishevelled  in  the  excitement  of  the 
hour.  Her  face  was  plain,  very  plain;  but  after  the 
wounds  were  washed  and  the  new  bandages  were  put 
round  the  splintered  limbs,  and  the  exhausted  boy  fell 
off  into  his  first  pleasant  sleep,  she  put  her  hand  on  his 
brow,  and  he  started  in  his  dream,  and  said: 

"O,  I  thought  an  angel  touched  me!" 

There  may  have  been  no  classic  elegance  in  the  fea- 
tures of  Mrs.  Harris,  who  came  into  the  hospital  after 
the  ''Seven  Days"  awful  fight  before  Richmond,  as  she 
sat  down  by  a  wounded  drummer-boy  and  heard  him 
soliloquize: 

"A  ball  through  my  body,  and  my  poor  mother  will 
never  again  see  her  boy.      What  a  pity  it  is!" 

And  she  leaned  over  him  and  said:  "Shall  1  be  your 
mother  and  comfort  you?" 

And  he  looked  up  and  said:  "Yes,  I'll  try  to  think  she's 
here.  Please  to  write  a  long  letter  to  her*  and  tell  her 
all  about  it,  and  send  her  a  lock  of  my  hair  and  comfort 
her.  But  I  would  like  to  have  you  tell  her  how  much  I 
suffered — yes,  I  would  like  you  to  do  that,  for  she  would 
feel  so  for  me.      Hold  my  hand  while  I  die." 

There  may  have  been  no  classic  elegance  in  her  fea- 
tures, but  all  the  hospitals  of  Harrison's  Landing  and 
Fortress  Monroe  would  have  agreed  that  she  was  beauti- 
ful; and  if  any  rongh  man  in  all  that  ward  had    insulted 


344  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

her,  some  wounded  soldier  would  have  leaped  from  his 
couch,  on  his  best  foot,  and  struck  him  dead  with  a 
crutch. 

FLATTERY  CANNOT  GIVE    YOU  TRUE  HAPPINESS. 

Again:  I  advise  you  not  to  depend  for  happiness  upon 
the  flatteries  of  men.  It  is  a  poor  compliment  to  your 
sex  that  so  many  men  feel  obliged  in  your  presence  to 
offer  unmeaning  compliments.  Men  capable  of  elegant 
and  elaborate  conversation  elsewhere  sometimes  feel 
called  upon  at  the  door  of  the  drawing-room  to  drop 
their  common  sense  and  to  dole  out  sickening  flatteries. 
They  say  things  about  your  dress,  and  about  your  ap- 
pearance, that  you  know,  and  they  know,  are  false. 
They  say  you  are  an  angel.  You  know  you  are  not. 
Determined  to  tell  the  truth  in  office,  and  store,  and  shop, 
they  consider  it  honorable  to  lie  to  a  woman.  The  same 
thing  that  they  told  you  on  this  side  of  the  drawing-room 
three  minutes  ago  they  said  to  some  on  the  other  side  of 
the  drawing-room.  O,  let  no  one  trample  on  your  self 
respect.  The  meanest  thing  on  which  a  woman  can 
build  her  happiness  is  the  flatteries  of  men. 

NOR    FASHION. 

Again:  I  charge  you  not  to  depend  for  happiness  up- 
on the  discipleship  of  fashion.  Some  men  are  just  as 
proud  of  being  out  of  the  fashion  as  others  are  of  being 
in  it.  I  have  seen  men  as  vain  of  their  old  fashioned 
coat,  and  their  eccentric  hat,  as  your  brainless  fop  is 
proud  of  his  dangling  fooleries.  Fashion  sometimes 
makes  a  reasonable  demand  of  us,  and  then  we  ought  to 
yield  to  it.  The  daisies  of  the  field  have  their  fashion  of 
color  and  leaf;  the  honeysuckles  have  their  fashion  of  ear- 


THE  WOMAN    OF  PLEASURE.  345 

drop;  and  the  snowflakes  flung  out  of  the  winter  heavens 
have  their  fashion  of  exquisiteness.  After  the  summer 
shower  the  sky  weds  the  earth  with  a  ring  of  rainbow. 
And  I  do  not  think  we  have  a  right  to  despise  all  the 
elegancies  and  fashions  of  this  world,  especially  if  they 
make  reasonable  demands  upon  us;  but  the  discipleship 
and  worship  of  fashion  is  death  to  the  body,  and  death 
to  the  soul. 

I  am  glad  the  world  is  improving.  Look  at  the  fashion 
plates  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  and 
you  will  find  that  the  world  is  not  so  extravagant  and 
extraordinary  now  as  it  was  then,  and  all  the  marvellous 
things  that  the  granddaughter  will  do  will  never  equal 
that  done  by  the  grandmother.  Go  still  further  back  to 
the  Bible  times,  and  you  find  that  in  those  times  fashion 
wielded  a  more  terrible  scepter.  You  have  only  to  turn 
"  to  the  third  chapter  of  Isaiah. 
•  Only  think  of  a  woman  having  all  that  on!  I  am  glad 
that  the  world  is  getting  better,  and  that  fashion  which 
has  dominated  in  the  world  so  ruinously  in  other  days 
has  for  a  little  time,  for  a  little  degree  at  any  rate,  re- 
laxed its  energies.  Oh,  the  danger  of  the  discipleship  of 
fashion.  All  the  splendors  and  extravaganza  of  this 
world  dyed  into  your  robe  and  flnng  over  your  shoulder 
cannot  wrap  peace  around  your  heart  for  a  single  moment. 
The  gayest  wardrobe  will  utter  no  voice  of  condolence  in 
the  day  of  trouble  and  darkness. 

That  woman  is  grandly  dressed,  and  only  she,  who  is 
wrapped  in  the  robe  of  a  Savior's  righteousness.  The 
home  may  be  very  humble,  the  hat  may  be  very  plain, 
the  frock    may   be  very  coarse;    but  the  halo    of    heaven 


346  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

settles  in  the  room  when  she  wears  it,  and  the  faintest 
touch  of  the  resurrection  angel  will  change  that  garment 
into  raiment  exceeding  white,  so  as  no  fuller  on  earth 
could  whiten  it. 

I  come  to  you,  young  woman,  to-day,  to  say  that  this 
world  cannot  make  you  happy.  I  know  it  is  a  bright 
world,  with  glorious  sunshine,  and  golden  rivers,  and  fire 
worked  sunset,  and  bird  orchestra,  and  the  darkest  cave, 
has  its  crystals,  and  the  wrathiest  wave  its  foam-wreath, 
and  the  coldest  midnight  its  flaming  aurora;  but  God  will 
put  out  all  these  lights  with  the  blast  of  his  own  nostrils, 
and  the  glories  of  this  world  will  perish  in  the  final  con- 
flagration 

You  will  never  be  happy  until  you  get  your  sins  for- 
given and  allow  Christ  Jesus  to  take  full  posession  of 
your  soul.  He  will  be  your  friend  in  every  perplexity. 
He  will  be  in  comfort  in  every  trial.  He  will  be  your 
defender  in  every  strait. 

I  do  not  ask  you  to  bring,  like  Mary,  the  spices  to  the 
sepulcher  of  a  dead  Christ,  but  to  bring  you  all  to  the 
feet  of  a  living  Jesus.  His  word  is  peace,  His  look  is 
love.  His  hand  is  help.  His  touch  is  life.  His  smile 
is  heaven. 

Oh,  come,  then,  in  flocks  and  groups!  Come,  like  the 
south  wind  over  banks  of  myrrh.  Come,  like  the  morn- 
ing light  tripping  over  the  mountains.  Wreath  all  your 
affections  for  Christ's  brow,  set  all  your  gems  in  Christ's 
coronet,  pour  all  your  voices  in  Christ's  song,  and  let  this 
Sabbath  air  rustle  with  the  wings  of  rejoicing  angels,  and 
the  tower  ot  God  ring  out  the  news  of  souls  saved! 

'  'This  world  its  fancied  pearl  may  crave, 


THE  WOMAN    OF  PLEASURE. 


347 


Tis  not  the  pearl  for  me; 
'Twill  dim  its  luster  in  the  grave, 

'Twill  perish  in  the  sea. 
But  there's  a  pearl  of  price  untold, 
Which  never  can  be  bought  with  gold; 

Oh,  that's  the  pearl  for  me." 


KEEPING   BAD   COMPANY. 


A  companion  of  fools  shall  be  destroyed." — Proverbs,  xiii,  20. 

^  n  the  night  of  city  exploration  I  found  that  hardly 


jany  young  man  came  to  places  of  dissipation  alone. 
Each  one  was  accompanied.  No  man  goes  to  ruin 
alone.      He  always  takes  some  one  else  with  him. 

'May  it  please  ihe  court,"  said  a  convicted  criminal, 
when  asked  if  he  had  anything  to  say  before  sentence  of 
death  was  passed  upon  him — "may  it  please  the  court, 
bad  company  has  been  my  ruin.  I  received  the  blessing 
of  good  parents,  and,  in  return,  promised  to  avoid  all 
evil  associations.  Had  I  kept  my  promise,  I  should  have 
been  saved  this  shame,  and  been  free  from  the  load  of 
guilt  that  hangs  around  me  like  a  vulture,  threatening  to 
drag  me  to  justice  for  crimes  yet  unrevealed.  I,  who 
once  moved  in  the  first  circles  of  society,  and  have  been 
the  guest  of  distinguished  public  men,  am  lost,  and  all 
through  bad  company." 

This  is  but  one  of  the  thousand  proofs  that  the  com- 
panion of  fools  shall  be  destroyed.  It  is  the  invariable 
rule.  Thers  is  a  well  man  in  the  wards  of  a  hospital, 
where  there  are  a  hundred  people  sick  with  ship  fever, 
and  he  will  not  be  so  apt  to  take  the  disease  as  a  good 
man  would  be  apt  to  be  smitten  with  moral  distemper, 
if  shut  up  with  iniquitous  companions. 

In  olden  times  prisoners  were  herded  together  in  the 
same  cell,  but    each  one  learned  the  vices    of  all  the  cul- 

[348] 


BAD   COMPARY.  349 

prits,  so  that,  instead  of  being  reformed  by  incarceration, 
the  day  of  liberation  turned  them  out  upon  society  beasts, 
not  men. 

We  may,  in  our  places  of  business,  be  compelled  to 
talk  to  and  mingle  with  bad  men;  but  he  who  deliber- 
ately chooses  to  associate  himself  with  vicious  people,  is 
engaged  in  carrying  on  a  courtship  with  a  Delilah,  whose 
shears  will  clip  off  all  the  locks  of  his  strength,  and  he 
will  be  tripped  into  perdition.  Sin  is  catching,  is  in- 
fectious, is  epidemic.  I  will  let  you  look  over  the  mil- 
lions of  people  now  inhabiting  the  earth,  and  I  chal- 
lenge you  to  show  me  a  good  man  who,  after  one  year, 
has  made  choice  and  consorted  with  the  wicked.  A 
thousand  dollars  reward  for  one  such  instance.  I  care 
not  how  strong  your  character  may  be.  Associate  with 
horse-thieves,  you  will  become  a  horse-thief.  Clan  with 
burglars,  and  you  will  become  a  burglar.  Go  among  the 
unclean,  and  you  will  become  unclean.  Not  apprecia- 
ting the  truth  of  my  text,  many  a  young  man  has  been 
destroyed.  He  wakes  up  some  morning  in  the  great 
city,  and  knows  no  one  except  the  persons  into  whose 
employ  he  has  entered. 

As  he  goes  into  the  store  all  the  clerks  mark  him, 
measure  him  and  discuss  him.  The  upright  young  men 
of  the  store  wish  him  well,  but  perhaps  wait  for  a  formal 
introduction,  and  even  then  have  some  delicacy  about 
inviting  him  into  their  associations.  But  the  bad  young 
men  of  the  store  at  the  first  opportunity  approach  and 
offer  their  services.  They  patronize  him.  They  profess 
to  know  all  about  the  town.  They  will  take  him  any- 
where that  he  wishes  to  go — if  he  will  pay  the  expenses. 


35°  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

For  if  a  good  young  man  and  a  bad  young  man  go  to 
some  place  where  they  ought  not,  the  good  young  man 
has  invariable  to  pay  the  charges.  At  the  moment  the 
ticket  is  to  be  paid  for,  or  the  champagne  settled  for,  the 
bad  young  man  feels  around  in  his  pockets  and  says,  "1 
have  forgotten  my  pocket-book." 

In  forty-eight  hours  after  the  young  man  has  entered 
the  store  the  bad  fellows  of  the  establishment  slap  him 
on  the  shoulder  familiarly;  and,  at  his  stupidity  in  taking 
certain  allusions,  say,  "My  young  friend,  you  will  have 
to  be  broken  in;"  and  they  immediately  proceed  to  break 
him  in. 

Young  man,  in  the  name  of  God  I  warn  you  to  be- 
ware how  you  let  a  bad  man  talk  familiarly  with  you. 
If  such  a  one  slap  you  on  the  shoulder  familiarly  turn 
round  and  give  him  a  withering  look,  until  the  wretch 
crouches  in  your  presence.  There  is  no  monstrosity  of 
wickedness  that  can  stand  unabashed  under  the  glance 
of  purity  and  honor.  God  keeps  the  lightnings  of  heaven 
in  his  own  scabbard,  and  no  human  arm  can  wield  them; 
but  God  gives  to  every  young  man  a  lightning  that  he 
may  use,  and  that  is  the  lightning  of  an  honest  eye. 
Those  who  have  been  close  observers  of  city  life  will  not 
wonder  why  I  give  warning  to  young  men  and  say,  '  Be- 
ware of  bad  company." 

SHUN    THE  SKEPTIC! 

First,  I  warn  you  to  shun  the  skeptic — the  young  man 
who  puts  his  fingers  in  his  vest  and  laughs  at  your  old- 
fashioned  religion,  and  turns  over  to  some  mystery  of 
the  Bible,  and  says,  '.'Explain  that,  my  pious  friend; 
explain  that."      And  who  says,  "Nobody  shall  scare  me; 


BAD  COMPANY.  35  T 

I  am  not  afraid  of  the  future;  I  used  to  believe  in  such 
things,  and  so  did  my  father  and  mother,  but  I  have  got 
over  it  "  Yes,  he  has  got  over  it;  and  if  you  sit  in  his 
company  a  little  longer,  you  will  get  over  it  too. 

Without  presenting  one  argument  against  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  such  men  will,  by  their  jeers  and  scoffs  and 
caricatures,  destroy  your  respect  for  that  religion,  which 
was  the  strength  of  your  father  in  his  declining  years, 
and  the  pillow  of  your  old  mother  when   she  lay  a-dying. 

Alas!  a  time  will  come  when  that  blustering  young 
infidel  will  have  to  die,  and  then  his  diamond  ring  will 
flash  no  splendor  in  the  eyes  of  Death,  as  he  stands  over 
the  couch,  waiting  for  his  soul.  Those  beautiful  locks 
will  be  uncombed  upon  the  pillow;  and  the  dying  man 
will  say: 

"I  cannot  die — I  cannot  die." 

Death  standing  ready  beside  the  couch  says,  "You 
must  die;  you  have  only  half  a  minute  to  live;  let  me 
have  it  right  away — your  soul. " 

''No,"  says  the  young  infidel,  "here  are  my  gold  rings, 
and  these  pictures;  take  them  all." 

"No,"  says  Death,  ."What  do  I  care  for  pictures! — 
your  soul." 

"Stand  back,"  says  the  dying  infidel. 

"I  will  not  stand  back,"  says  Death,  for  you  have  only 
ten  seconds  now  to  live:  I  want  your  soul." 

The  dying  man  says,  "Don't  breath  that  cold  air  into 
my  face.  You  crowd  me  to  hard.  It  is  getting  dark  in 
the  room.      O  God!" 

"Hush,"  says  Death;  you  said  there  was  no  God." 

"Pray  for  me,"  exclaims  the  expiring  infidel. 


352  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

4 'Too  late  to  pray,"  says  Death;  "but  three  more 
seconds  to  live,  and  I  will  count  them  off — one — two — 
three."     He  has  gone! 

Where?  Where?  Carry  him  out — out,  and  bury  him 
beside  his  father  and  mother,  who  died  while  holding 
fast  the  Christian  religion.  They  died  singing;  but  the 
young  infidel  only  said,  "Don't  breathe  that  cold  air  into 
my  face.  You  crowd  me  too  hard.  It  is  getting  dark 
in  the  room. 

SHUN  THE   IDLER! 

Again,  I  urge  you  to  shun  the  companionship  of  idlers. 
There  are  men  hanging  around  every  store,  and  office 
and  shop,  who  have  nothing  to  do,  or  act  as  if  they  had 
not.  They  are  apt  to  come  in  when  the  firm  are  away, 
and  wish  to  engage  you  in  conversation  while  you  are 
engaged  in  your  regular  employment.  Politely  suggest 
to  such  persons  that  you  have  no  time  to  give  them  dur- 
ing business  hours.  Nothing  would  pleaso  them  so  well 
as  to  have  you  renounce  your  occupation  and  associate 
with  them.  Much  of  the  time  they  lounge  around  the 
doors  of  engine  houses,  or  after  the  dining  hour  stand  up- 
on the  steps  of  a  fashionaple  hotel  or  an  elegant  restau- 
rant wishing  to  give  you  the  idea  that  that  is  the  place 
where  they  dine.  But  they  do  not  dine  there.  They  are 
sinking  down  lower  and  lower,  day  by  day.  Neither  by 
day  nor  by  night  have  anything  to  do  with  the  idlers. 

Before  you  admit  a  man  into  your  acquaintance  ask 
him  politely,  "What  do  you  do  for  a  living?"  If  he  says 
"Nothing,  I  am  a  gentleman,"  look  out  for  him.  He 
may  have  a  very  soft  hand,  and  very  faultless  apparel, 
and  have  a  high-sounding  family   name,  but  his  touch  is 


BAD  COMPANY.  353 

death.  Before  you  know  it,  you  will  in  his  presence  be 
ashamed  of  your  work  dress.  Business  will  become  to 
you  drudgery,  and  after  awhile  you  will  lose  your  place, 
and  afterward  your  respectability,  and  last  of  all  your 
soul. 

Idleness  is  next  door  to  villainy.  Thieves,  gamblers, 
burglars,  shop-lifters  and  assassins  are  made  from  the 
class  who  have  nothing  to  do.  When  the  police  go  to 
hunt  up  and  arrest  a  culprit  they  seldom  go  to  look  in  at 
the  busy  carriage  factory,  or  behind  the  counter  where 
diligent  clerks  are  employed,  but  they  go  among  the 
groups  of  idlers. 

The  play  is  going  on  at  the  theatre,  when  suddenly 
there  is  a  scuffle  in  the  top  gallery.       What  is  it? 

A  policeman  has  come  in,  and,  leaning  over,  has  tap- 
ped on  the  shoulder  of  a  young  man,  saying,  "I  want 
you,  sir."  He  has  not  worked  during  the  day,  but  some- 
how has  raked  together  a  shilling  or  two  to  get  into  the 
top  gallery.  He  is  an  idler.  The  man  on  his  right 
hand  is  an  idler,  and  the  man  on  his  left  hand  is  an 
idler. 

During  the  past  few  years  there  has  been  a  great  deal 
of  dullness  in  business.  Young  men  have  complained 
that  they  have  little  to  do.  If  they  have  nothing  else 
to  do  they  can  read  and  improve  their  minds  and  hearts. 
These  times  are  not  always  to  continue.  Business  is 
waking  up,  and  the  superior  knowledge  that  in  this  in- 
terregnum of  work  you  may  obtain  will  be  worth  fifty 
thousand  dollars  of  capital.  The  large  fortunes  of  the 
next  twenty  years  are  having  their  foundations  laid  this 
winter  by  the    young  men  who  are    giving  themselves  to 


354  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

self-improvement.  I  went  into  a  store  in  New  York  and 
saw  five  men,  all  Christians,  sitting  around,  saying  that 
they  had  nothing  to  do.  It  is  an  outrage  for  a  Christian 
man  to  have  nothing  to  do.  Let  him  go  out  and  visit 
the  poor,  or  distribute  tracts,  or  go  and  read  the  Bible  to 
the  sick,  or  take  out  his  New  Testament  and  be  making 
his  eternal  fortune.  Let  him  go  into  the  back  office  and 
pray. 

Shrink  back  from  idleness  in  yourself  and  in  others,  if 
you  would  maintain  a  right  position.  Good  old  Ashbel 
Green,  at  more  than  eighty  years  of  age,  was  found  busy 
writing,  and  some  young  man  said  to  him:  "Why  do 
you  keep  busy?  It  is  time  for  you  to  rest!"  He  an- 
swered: "I  keep  busy  to  keep  out  of  mischief."  No  man 
is  strong  enough  to  be  idle. 

Are  you  fond  of  pictures?  If  so  I  will  show  you  one 
of  the  works  of  an  old  master.  Here  it  is:  "I  went  by 
the  field  of  the  slothful,  and  by  the  vineyard  of  the  man 
void  of  understanding;  and  lo!  it  was  all  grown  over  with 
thorns,  and  nettles  had  covered  the  face  thereof,  and  the 
stone  wall  was  broken  down.  Then  I  saw  and  consider- 
ed well.  I  looked  upon  it  and  received  instructions.  Yet 
a  little  sleep,  a  little  slumber,  a  litlle  folding  of  the  hands 
to  sleep.  So  shall  thy  poverty  come  as  one  that  traveleth 
and  thy  want  as  an  armed  man."  I  don't  know  of  an- 
other sentence  in  the  Bible  more  explosive  than  that.  It 
first  hisses  softly,  like  the  fuse  of  a  cannon,  and  at  last 
bursts  like  a  fifty-four  pounder.  The  old  proverb  was 
right:  "The  devil  temDts  most  men,  but  idlers  tempt 
the  devil. " 

A  young  man    came  to    a  man  of    ninety  years    of  age 


BAD  COMPANY.  355 

and  said  to  him:  ''How  have  you  made  out  to  live  so 
long  and  be  so  well?"  The  old  man  took  the  youngster 
to  an  orchard,  and,  pointing  to  some  large  trees  full  of 
apples,  said:  "I  planted  these  trees  when  I  was  a  boy, 
and  do  you  wonder  that  now  I  am  permitted  to  gather 
the  fruit  of  them?"  We  gather  in  old  age  what  we  plant 
in  our  youth.  Sow  to  the  wind  and  we  reap  the  whirl- 
wind. Plant  in  early  life  the  right  kind  of  a  Christian 
character,  and  you  will  eat  lucious  fruit  in  old  age,  and 
gather  these  harvest  apples  in  eternity. 

AVOID  THE  PERPETUAL  PLEASURE  SEEKER. 

Again:  I  urge  you  to  avoid  the  perpetual  pleasure- 
seeker.  I  believe  in  recreation  and  amusement.  I  need 
it  as  much  as  I  need  bread,  and  go  to  my  gymnasium 
with  as  conscientious  a  purpose  as  I  go  to  the  Lord's 
Supper;  and  all  persons  of  sanguine  temperament  must 
have  amusement  and  recreation.  God  would  not  have 
made  us  with  the  capacity  to  laugh  if  he  had  not  intend- 
ed us  sometimes  to  indulge  in  it.  We  will  go  forth  from 
the  festivities  of  coming  holidays  better  prepared  to  do 
our  work. 

God  hath  hung  in  sky,  and  set  in  wave,  and  printed  on 
grass  many  a  roundelay;  but  he  who  chooses  pleasure- 
seeking  for  his  life-work  does  not  understand  for  what 
God  made  him.  Our  amusements  are  intended  to  help 
us  in  some  earnest  mission. 

The  thunder-cloud  hath  an  edge  exquisitely  purpled, 
but  with  voice  that  jars  the  earth,  it  declares,  "I  go  to 
water  the  green  fields." 

The  wild-flowers  under  the  fence  are  gay,  but  they 
say,    "We  stand  here  to  make   room  for  the  wheat-field, 


35^  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

and  to  refresh  the   husbandmen    in  their   nooning." 

The  stream  sparkles  and  foams,  and  frolics,  and  says, 
"I  go  to  baptize  the  moss.  I  lave  the  spots  on  the  trout. 
I  slake  the  thirst  of  the  bird.  I  turn  the  wheel  of  the 
mill.  I  rock  in  my  crystal  cradle  muckshaw  and  water- 
lily." 

And  so,  while  the  world  plays,  it  works.  Look  out  for 
the  man  who  always  plays  and  never  works. 

You  will  do  well  to  avoid  those  whose  regular  business 
it  is  to  play  ball,  skate  or  go  a-boating.  All  these  sports 
are  fraud  in  their  places.  I  never  derived  so  much  ad- 
vantage from  any  ministerial  association,  as  from  min- 
isterial club  that  went  out  to  play  ball  every  Saturday 
afternoon  in  the  outskirts  of  Philadelphia.  These  re- 
creations are  grand  to  give  us  muscle  and  spirits  for  our 
regular  toil.  I  believe  in  muscular  Christianity.  A  man 
is  often  not  so  near  God  with  a  weak  stomach  as  when 
he  has  a  strong  digestion.  But  shun  those  who  make 
it  their  life  occupation  to  sport.  There  are  young  men 
whose  industry  and  usefulness  have  fallen  overboard  from 
the  yacht  on  the  Hudson  or  the  Schuylkill.  There  are 
men  whose  business  fell  through  the  ice  of  the  skating 
pond,  and  has  never  since  been  heard  of.  There  is  a 
beauty  in  the  gliding  of  a  boat,  in  the  song  of  skates,  in 
the  soaring  of  a  well-struck  ball,  and  I  never  see  one 
fly  but  I  involuntarily  throw  up  my  hands  to  catch  it; 
and,  so  far  from  laying  an  injunction  upon  ball-play »g, 
or  any  other  innocent  sport,  I  claim  them  alias  belonging 
of  right  to  those  of  us  who  toil  in  the  grand  industries  of 
church  and  state. 

But  the  life  business  of  pleasure-seeking  always  makes 


BAD  COMPANY.  357 

in  the  end  a  criminal  or  a  sot.  George  Brummel  was 
smiled  upon  by  all  England,  and  his  life  was  given  to 
pleasure.  He  danced  with  peeresses,  and  swung  a  round 
of  mirth,  and  wealth,  and  applause,  until  exhausted  of 
purse,  and  worn  out  of  body,  and  bankrupt  of  reputation, 
and  ruined  of  soul,  he  begged  a  biscuit  from  a  grocer, 
and  declared  that  he  thought  a  dog's  life  was  better  than 
a  man's. 

Such  men  will  crowd  around  your  anvil,  or  seek  to  de- 
coy you  off.  They  will  want  you  to  break  out  in  the 
midst  of  your  busy  day  to  take  a  ride  with  them  to  Coney 
Island  or  to  Central  Park.  They  will  tell  you  of  some 
people  you  must  see;  of  some  excursion  that  you  must 
take;  of  some  Sabbath  day  that  you  ought  to  dishonor. 
They  will  tell  you  of  exquisite  wines  that  you  must  take; 
of  costly  operas  that  you  must  hear;  or  wonderful  dancers 
that  you  must  see;  but  before  you  accept  their  convoy  or 
their  companionship,  remember  that  while  at  the  end  of 
a  useful  life  you  may  be  able  to  look  back  to  kindnesses 
done,  to  honorable  work  accomplished,  to  poverty  helped, 
to  a  good  name  earned,  to  Christian  influence  exerted, 
to  a  Savior's  cause  advanced — these  pleasure-seekers  on 
their  death-bed  have  nothing  better  to  review  than  a  torn 
play-bill,  a  ticket  for  the  races,  an  empty  tankard,  and 
the  cast-out  rinds  of  a  carousal'  and  as  in  the  delirium 
of  their  awful  death  they  clutch  the  goblet,  and  press  it 
to  their  lips,  the  dregs  of  the  cup  falling  upon  their 
tongue,  will  begin  to  hiss  and  uncoil  with  the  adders  of 
an  eternal  poison. 

Cast  out  these  men  from  your  company.  Do  not  be 
intimate  with  them.        Always  be  polite?       There    is  no 


35§  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

demand  that  you  ever  sacrifice  politeness.  A  young 
man  accosted  a  Christian  Quaker  with,  "  Old  Chap,  how 
did  you  make  all  your  money?"  The  Quaker  replied, 
"  By  dealing  in  an  article  that  thou  mayst  deal  in  if 
thou  wilt — civility."  Always  be  courteous,  but  at  the 
same  time  firm.  Say  no  as  if  you  meant  it.  Have  it 
understood  in  store,  and  shop,  and  street  that  you  will 
not  stand  in  the  companionship  of  the  skeptic,  the  idle, 
the  pleasure-seeker. 

Rather  than  enter  the  companionship  of  such,  accept 
the  invitation  to  a  better  feast.  The  promises  of  God  are 
the  fruits.  The  harps  of  heaven  are  the  music.  Clus- 
ters from  the  vineyards  of  God  have  been  pressed  into 
the  tankards.  The  sons  and  daughters  of  the  Lord 
Almighty  are  the  guests.  While,  standing  at  one  banquet, 
to  fill  the  cups  and  divide  the  clusters,  and  command 
the  harps,  and  welcome  the  guests,  is  a  daughter  of  God 
on  whose  brow  are  the  blossoms  of  Paradise,  and  in 
whose  cheek  is  the  flash  of  celestiai  summer.  Her  name 
is  Religion. 

"Her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness. 
And  all  her  paths  are  peace." 


THE    HANDWRITING    ON  THE  WALL. 


THE  TIDES  OF  MUNICIPAL  SIN. 


"He beheld  the  city,    and  wept  over  it." — Luke  xix,  41. 

The  citizens  of  Old  Jerusalem  are  in  the  tip-top  of  ex- 
citement. A  country  man  has  been  doing  some  wonder- 
ful works  and  asserting  very  high  authority.  The  police 
court  has  issued  papers  for  his  arrest,  for  this  thing 
must  be  stopped,  as    the  very  government    is  imperilled. 

News  comes  that  last  night  this  stranger  arrived  at  a 
suburban  village,  and  that  he  is  stopping  at  the  house  of 
man  whom  he  has  resuscitated  after  four  days'  sepulture. 
Well,  the  people  rush  out  into  the  streets,  some  with 
the  idea  of  helping  in  the  arrest  of  this  stranger  when  he 
arrives,  and  others  expecting  on  the  morrow  he  will  come 
into  the  town,  and  by  some  supernatural  force  oust  the 
municipal  and  royal  authorities  and  take  everything  in 
his  town  hands. 

They  pour  out  of  the  city  gates  until  the  procession 
reaches  to  the  village.  They  come  all  around  about  the 
house  where  the  stranger  is  stopping,  and  peer  into  the 
doors  and  windows  that  they  may  get  one  glimpse  of  him 
or  hear  the  hum  of  his  voice.  ' 

The  police  dare  not  make  the  arrest  because  he  has, 
somehow,  won  the  affections  of  all  the  people.  O,  it  is 
a  lively  night  in  Bethany.  The  heretofore  quiet  village 
is  filled  with  uproar,  and  outcry,  and  loud  discussion 
about  the  strange  acting  countryman.  I  do  not  think 
there  was    any  sleep  in   that  house  that  night    where  the 

[359] 


360  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

stranger  was  stopping.  Although  he  came  in  weary  he 
finds  no  rest,  though  for  once  in  his  lifetime  he  had  a 
pillow. 

But  the  morning  dawns,  the  olive  gardens  wave  in  the 
light,  and  all  along  the  road,  reaching  over  the  top  of 
Olivet  toward  Jerusalem,  there  is  a  vast  swaying  crowd 
of  wondering  people.  The  excitement  around  the  door 
of  the  cottage  is  wild,  as  the  stranger  steps  out  beside 
an  unbroken  colt  that  has  never  been  mounted,  and  after 
his  friends  had  strewn  their  garments  on  the  beast  for  a 
saddle,  the  Saviour  mounts  it,  and  the  populace,  excited, 
and  shouting,  and  feverish,  push  on  back  toward  Jeru- 
salem. Let  none  jeer  now  or  scoff  at  this  rider,  or  the 
populace  will  trample  him  under  foot  in  an  instant. 

There  is  one  long  shont  of  two  miles,  and  as  far  as  the 
eye  can  reach,  you  see  wavings  of  demonstrations  and 
approval.  There  was  something  in  the  rider's  visage, 
something  in  his  majestic  brow,  something  in  his  princely 
behavior,  that  stirs  up  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people. 
They  run  up  against  the  beast  and  try  to  pull  off  their 
arms,  and  carry  on  their  shoulders,  the  illustrious  stran- 
ger. The  populace  are  so  excited  that  they  hardly  know 
what  to  do  with  themselves,  and  some  rush  up  the  road 
side  trees  and  wrench  off  branches  and  throw  them  in 
his  way:  and  others  doff  their  garments,  what  though 
they  be  new  and  costly,  and  spread  them  for  a  carpet 
for  the  conqueror  to  ride  over. 

"Hosanna!"  cry  the  people  at  the  foot  of  the  hill. 

"Hosanna!"  cry  the  people  all  up  and  down  the  moun- 
tain. 

The    procession   has  now  come  to   the  brow  of  Olivet. 


MUNICIPAL   SIN.  361 

Magnificent  prospect  reaching  out  in  every  direction — 
vineyards,  olive  groves,  jutting  rock,  silvery  Siloam,  and 
above  all,  rising  on  its  throne  of  hills,  the  most  highly 
honored  city  of  all  the  earth,  Jerusalem.  Christ  there, 
in  the  midst  of  the  procession,  looks  off,  and  sees  here 
fortressed  gates,  and  yonder  the  circling  wall,  and  here 
the  towers  blazing  in  the  sun,  Phasaelus  and  Mariamne. 
Yonder  is  Hippicus,  the  king's  castle.  Looking  along 
in  the  range  of  the  larger  branch  of  that  olive  tree  you 
see  the  mansions  of  the  merchant  princes.  Through  this 
cleft  in  the  limestone  rock  you  see  the  palace  of  the 
richest  trafficer  in  all  the  earth.  He  has  made  his 
money  by  selling  Tyrian  purple.  Behold  now  the  Tem- 
ple! Clouds  of  smoke  lifting  from  the  shimmering  roof, 
while  the  building  rises  up  beautiful,  grand,  majestic, 
the  architectural  skill  and  glory  of  the  earth  lifting  them- 
selves there  in  one  triumphant  doxology,  the  frozen 
prayer  of  all  nations. 

The  crowd  looked  around  to  see  exhilaration  and 
transport  in  the  face  of  Christ.  O,  no!  Out  from  amid 
the  gates,  and  the  domes,  and  the  palaces  there  arose  a 
vision  of  that  city's  sin,  and  of  that  city's  doom,  which 
obliterated  the  landscape  from  horizon  to  horizon,  and 
He  burst  into  tears.  "He  beheld  the  city,  and  wept 
over  it." 

Standing  in  some  high  tower  of  the  beloved  city  of 
our  residence,  we  might  look  off  upon  a  wondrous  scene 
of  enterprise,  and  wealth,  and  beauty;  long  streets,  faced 
by  comfortable  homes,  here  and  there  rising  into  afflu- 
ence, while  we  might  find  thousands  of  people  who  would 
be  glad  to  cast  palm  branches  in  the  way  of  him  who 


362  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES. 

comes  from  Bethany  to  Jerusalem,  greeting  him  with  the 
vociferation:    "Hosanna!  to  the  Son  of  David." 

And  yet  how  much  there  is-to  mourn  over  in  our  cities, 
passing  along  the  streets  to-day  are  a  great  multitude. 
Whither  do  they  go?  To  church.  Thank  God  for  that. 
Listen,  this  morning,  and  you  hear  multitudinous  voices 
of  praise.      Thank  God  for  that. 

When  the  evening  falls  you  will  find  Christian  men 
and  women  knocking  at  hovels  of  povery,  and  finding  no 
light,  taking  the  matches  from  their  pocket,  and  by  a 
momentary  glance  revealing  wan  faces,  and  wasted 
hands,  and  ragged  bed,  sending  in  before  morning,  can- 
dles and  vials  of  medicine,  and  Bibles  and  loaves  ot  bread, 
and  two  or  three  flowers  from  the  hot- house.  Thank 
God  for  that. 

But  listen  again,  and  you  hear  the  thousand-voiced 
shriek  of  blasphemy  tearing  its  way  up  from  the  depths 
of  the  city.  You  see  the  uplifted  decanters  emptied  now 
but  uplifted  to  fight  down  the  devils  they  have  raised. 

Listen  to  that  wild  laugh  on  the  street  corner,  that 
makes  the  pure  shudder  and  say:  "Poor  thing,  that's  a 
lost  soul!"  Hark!  to  the  click  of  the  gambler's  dice  and 
the  hysteric  guffaw  of  him  who  has  pocketed  the  last  dol- 
lar of  that  young  man's  estate. 

This  is  the  banquet  of  Bacchus.  That  young  man  has 
taken  his  first  glass.  That  man  has  taken  down  three- 
fourth  of  his  estate.  This  man  is  trembling  with  last 
night's  debauch.  This  man  has  pawned  everything  save 
that  old  coat.  This  man  is  in  delirium,  sitting  pale  and 
unaware  of  anything  that  is  transpiring  about  him — 
quiet  until  after  awhile  he  rises  up  with  a  shriek,  enough 


MUNICIPAL    SIN.  363 

to  make  the  denizens  of  the  pit  clap  to  the  door  and  put 
their  fingers  in  their  ears,  and  rattle  their  chains  still 
louder  to  drown  out  the  horrible  outcry. 

You  say:  "Is  it  not  strange  that  there  should  be  so 
much  suffering  and  sin  in  our  cities?" 

No,  it  is  not  strange. 

When  I  look  abroad  and  see  the  temptations  that  are 
attempting  to  destroy  men  for  time  and  eternity,  I  am 
surprised  in  the  other  direction  that  there  are  any  true, 
upright,  honest,  Christian  people  left.  There  is  but  little 
hope  for  any  man  in  these  great  cities  who  has  not 
established  in  his  soul,  sound,  thorough  Christian  prin- 
ciple. 

COEMERCIAL  FRAUDS ! 

First,  look  around  you  and  see  the  temptations  to 
commercial  frauds.  Here  is  a  man  who  starts  in  busi- 
ness. 

He  says:  "I'm  going  to  be  honest;"  but  on  the  same 
street,  on  the  same  block,  in  the  same  business,  are 
Shylocks. 

Those  men,  to  get  the  patronage  of  any  one,  will  break 
all  understandings  with  other  merchants,  and  will  sell  at 
ruinous  cost,  putting  their  neighbors  at  great  disadvan- 
tage, expecting  to  make  up  the  deficit  in  something 
else.  If  an  honest  principle  could  creep  into  that  man's 
soul,  it  would  die  of  sheer  loneliness!  The  man  twists 
about,  trying  to  escape  the  penalty  of  the  law,  and  de- 
spises God,  while  he  is  just  a  little  anxious  about  the 
sheriff. 

The  honest  man  looks  about  him  and  says:  "Well, 
this  rivalry    is  awful.        Perhaps  I    am    more  scrupulous 


364  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES 

than  I  need  be.       This  little  bargain  I  am  about  to  enter 
is  doubtful;  but  then  they  all  do  it." 

EFFECT  OF  FRAUDULENT  COMPETITION. 

And  so  I  had  a  friend  who  started  in  commercial  life, 
and  as  a  book  merchant,  with  a  high  resolve.  He  said: 
"In  my  store  there  shall  be  no  book  that  I  would  not 
have  my  family  read." 

Time  passed  on,  and  one  day  I  went  into  his  store  and 
found  some  iniquitous  books  on  the  shelf,  and  I  said  to 
him:  "How  is  it  possible  that  you  can  consent  to  sell 
such  books  as  these?" 

"Oh,"  he  replied:  "I  have  got  over  those  puritanical 
notions.  A  man  cannot  do  business  in  this  day  unless  he 
does  it  in  the  way  other  people  do  it." 

To  make  a  long  story  short,  he  lost  his  hope  of  neaven, 
and  in  a  little  while  he  lost  his  morality,  and  then  he 
went  into  a  mad-house.  In  other  words,  when  a  man 
casts  off  God,  God  casts  him  off. 

One  of  the  mightiest  temptations  in  commercial  life, 
in  all  our  cities,  to-day,  is  in  the  fact  that  many  profess- 
ed Christian  men  are  not  square  in  their  bargains.  Such 
men  are  in  Baptist,  and  Methodist,  and  Congregational 
Churches,  and  our  own  denomination  is  as  largely  repre- 
sented as  any  of  them. 

Our  good  merchants  are  foremost  iu  Christian  enter- 
prises; they  are  patronizers  of  art,  philanthropic  and 
patriotic.  God  will  attend  to  them  in  the  day  of  His 
coronation.  I  am  not  speaking  of  them,  but  of  those  in 
commercial  life  who  are  setting  a  ruinous  example  to  our 
young  merchants. 

Go  through  all    the  stores  and  offices    in  this  city,  and 


MUNICIPAL    SIN.  365 

tell  me  in    how  many    of  those  stores  and   offices  are  the 
principles  of  Christ's  religion  dominant? 

In  three-fourths  of  them? 

No. 

In  half  of  them? 

No. 

In  one-tenth  of  them? 

No. 

Decide  for  yourself. 

GOD  AND    THE  OIL    SWINDLER. 

The  impression  is  sbroad,  somehow,  that  charity  can 
consecrate  iniquitous  gains,  and  that  if  a  man  give  to 
God  a  portion  of  an  unrighteous  bargain,  then  the  Lord 
will  forgive  him  the  rest.  The  secretary  of  a  benevolent 
society  came  to  me  and  said: 

"Mr.  So-and-So  has  given  a  large  amount  of  money 
to  the  missionary  cause,"  mentioning  the  sum. 

I  said:    "I  can't  believe  it." 

He  said:    "It  is  so." 

Well,  I  went,  home,  staggered  and  confounded.  I 
never  knew  the  man  to  give  to  anything;  but  after  awhile 
I  found  out  that  he  had  been  engaged  in  the  most  in- 
famous kind  of  an  oil  swindle,  and  then  he  proposed  to 
compromise  the  matter  with  the  Lord,  saying: 

"Now  here  is  so  much  for  Thee,  Lord.  Please  to  let 
me  off!" 

I  want  to  tell  you  that  the  Church  of  God  is  not  a  shop 
for  receiving  stolen  goods,  and  that  if  you  have  taken 
anything  from  your  fellows,  you  had  better  return  it  to 
the  men  to  whom  it  belongs.  If,  from  the  nature  of  the 
circumstances,    that  be    impossible,    you  had    better  get 


366  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

your  stove  red  hot,  and  when  the  flames  are  at  their 
fierciest  toss  in  the  accursed  spoil.  Cod  does  not  want 
it. 

The  commercial  world  to-day  is  rotten  through  and 
through,  and  many  of  you  know  better  than  I  can  tell 
you  that  it  requires  great  strength  of  moral  character  to 
withstand  the  temptations  of  business  dishonesties. 
Thank  God  a  great  many  of  you  have  withstood  the 
temptations,  and  are  as  pure,  and  upright,  and  honest  as 
the  day  when  you  entered  business.  But  you  are  the 
exceptions  in  the  case.  God  will  sustain  a  man,  how- 
ever, amid  all  the  excitements  of  business,  if  he  will  only 
put  his  trust  in  Him. 

HOW  HONESTY  WAS  REWARDED. 

In  a  drug-store,  in  Philadelphia,  a  young  man  was 
told  that  he  must  sell  blacking  on  the  Lord's  day. 

He  said  to  the  head  man  of  the  firm:  -'I  can't  possibly 
do  that.  I  am  willing  to  sell  medicines  on  the  Lord's 
day,  for  I  think  that  is  right  and  necessary;  but  I  can't 
sell  this  patent  blacking." 

He  was  discharged  from  the  place. 

A  Christian  man  hearning  of  it,  took  him  into  his  em- 
ploy, and  he  went  on  from  one  success  to  another,  until 
he  was  known  all  over  the  land  for  his  faith  in  Gud  and 
his  good  works,  as  well  as  for  his  worldly  success.  When 
a  man  has  sacrificed  any  temporal,  financial  good  for  the 
sake  of  his  spiritual  interests,  the  Lord  is  on  his  side,  and 
one  with  God  is  a  majority. 

Again:  Look  around  you  and  see  the  pressure  of  polit- 
ical life.  How  many  are  going  down  under  this  influ- 
ence.      There  is  not  one  ma*  out  of  a  thousand  that  can 


MUNICIPAL     SIN.  367 

stand  political  life  in  our  cities.  Once  in  awhile  a  man 
comes  and  says:  "Now  I  love  my  city  and  my  country, 
and,  in  the  strength  of  God,  I  am  going  in  as  a  sort  of 
missionary  to  reform  politics."  The  Lord  is  on  his  side. 
He  comes  out  as  pure  as  when  he  went  in,  and,  with  such 
an  idea,  I  believe  he  will  be  sustained;  but  he  is  the  ex- 
ception. When  such  an  upright,  pure  man  does  step  in- 
to politics,  the  first  thing,  the  newspapers  take  the  job 
of  blackening  him  all  over,  and  they  review  all  his  past 
life,  and  distort  everything  that  he  has  done,  until,  from 
thinking  himself  a  highiy  respectable  citizen,  he  begins 
to  contemplate  what  a  mercy  it  is  that  he  has  been  so 
long  out  of  gaol. 

The  most  hopeless,  God-for-saken  people  in  all  our 
cities  are  those  who,  not  in  a  missionary  spirit,  but  with 
the  idea  of  sordid  gain,  have  gone  into  political  life. 

I  pray  for  the  prisoners  in  gaol,  and  think  they  may  be 
converted  to  God,  but  I  never  have  any  faith  to  pray  for 
an  old  politician. 

Then  look  around  and  see  the  allurements  to  an  im- 
pure life.  Bad  books,  unknown  to  father  and  mother, 
vile  as  the  lice  of  Egypt,  creeping  into  some  of  the  best 
of  families  of  the  community;  and  boys  read  them  while 
the  teacher  is  looking  the  other  way,  or  at  recess,  or  on 
the  corner  of  the  street  when  the  groups  are  gathered. 
These  books  are  read  late  at  night.  Satan  finds  them  a 
smooth  plank  on  which  he  can  slide  down  into  perdition 
some  of  your  sons  and  daughters. 

Reading  bad  books — one  never  gets  over  it.  The 
books  may  be  burned,  but  there  is  not  enough  of  power 
in  all  the  apothecary's  preparations  to  wash  out  the  stain 


368  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

from  the  soul.  Father's  hands,  mother's  hands,  sister's 
hands,  will  not  wash  it  out.  None  but  the  hand  of  the 
Lord  God  can  wash  it  out.  And  what  is  more  perilous 
in  regard  to  these  temptations,  we  may  not  mention 
them.  While  God  in  this  Bible,  from  chapter  to  chapter, 
thunders  His  denunciation  against  these  crimes,  people 
expect  the  pulpit  and  the  printing-press  to  be  silent  on 
the  subject,  and  just  in  proportion  as  people  are  impure 
are  they  fastidious  on  the  theme.  They  are  so  full  of 
decay  and  death  they  do  not  want  their  sepulchres  open- 
ed. But  I  shall  not  be  hindered  by  them.  I  shall  go 
on  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Almighty,  before  whom  you 
and  I  must  at  last  come  into  judgment,  and  shall  pursue 
that  vile  sin  and  thrust  it  with  the  two  edged-sword  of 
God's  truth,  though  I  find  it  sheltered  under  the  chande- 
liers of  some  of  your  beautiful  parlors. 

God  will  turn  into  destruction  all  the  unclean,  and  no 
splendors  of  surrounding  can  make  decent  that  which 
He  has  smitten. 

God  will  not  excuse  sin  merely  because  it  has  costly 
array,  and  beautiful  tapestry,  and  palatial  residence,  any 
more  than  He  will  excuse  that  which  crawls,  a  blotch  of 
sores,  through  the  lowest  cellar.  Ever  and  anon,  through 
some  law-suit  there  flashes  upon  the  people  of  our  great 
cities  what  is  transpiring  in  seemingly  respectable 
circles. 

You  call  it  "High  Life,"  you  call  it  "Fast  living,"  you 
call  it  "People's  eccentricity."  And  while  we  kick  off 
the  sidewalk  the  poor  wretch  who  has  not  the  means  to 
garnish  his  iniquity,  these  lords  and  ladies,  wrapped  in 
purple  and  line  linen,  go  unwhipped  of  public  justice. 


MUNICIPAL  SIN.  369 

Ah,  the  most  dreadful  part  of  the  whole  thing  is  that 
there  are  persons  abroad  whose  whole  business  it  is  to 
despoil  the  young.  Salaried  by  infamous  establishments, 
these  cormorants  of  darkness,  these  incarnate  fiends, 
hang  around  your  hotels,  and  your  theatres,  and  they  in- 
sinuate themselves  among  the  clerks  of  your  stores,  and, 
by  adroitest  art,  sometimes  get  in  the  purest  circles.  Oh, 
what  an  eternity  such  a  man  as  that  will  have!  As  the 
door  opens  to  receive  him,  thousands  of  voices  will  cry 
out:  "See  here  what  you  have  done;"  and  the  wretch 
will  wrap  himself  with  fiercer  flame  and  leap  into  deeper 
darkness,  and  the  multitudes  he  has  destroyed  will  pur- 
sue him,  and  hurl  at  him  the  long,  bitter,  relentless, 
everlasting  curse  of  their  own  anguish. 

If  there  be  one  cup  of  eternal  darkness  more  bitter 
than  another,  they  will  have  to  drink  it  to  the  dregs.  If, 
in  all  the  ocean  of  the  lost  world  that  comes  billowing 
up,  there  be  one  wave  more  fierce  than  another,  it  will 
dash  over  them.  "God  will  wound  the  "hairy  scalp  of 
him  who  goeth  on  still  in  his  trespasses." 

I  think  you  are  persuaded  there  is  but  little  chance 
here  in  Brooklyn,  or  in  New  York,  or  Philadelphia,  or 
Boston,  for  any  young  man  without  the  grace  of  God. 

I  will  even  go  further  and  make  it  more  emphatic,  and 
say  there  is  no  chance  for  any  young  man  who  has  not 
above  him,  and  beneath  him,  and  before  him,  and  be- 
hind him,  and  on  the  right  of  him,  and  on  the  left  of 
him,  and  within  him,  the  all-protecting  grace  of  God. 

My  word  of  warning  is  to  those  who  have  recently  come 
to  the  city;  some  of  them  entering  our  banking  institu- 
tions, and  some  of  them  our  stores  and  shops.        Shelter 


370  EVILS    OF   THE    CITIES. 

yourselves  in  God.  Do  not  trust  yourselves  an  hour 
without  the  defences  of  Christ's  religion. 

I  stood  one  day  at  Niagara  Falls,  and  I  saw  what  you 
may  have  seen  there,  six  rainbows  bending  over  that 
tremendous  plunge.  I  never  saw  anything  like  it  before 
or  since.  Six  beautiful  rainbows  arching  that  great  cat- 
aract! And  so  over  the  rapids  and  the  angry  precipices 
of  sin,  where  so  many  have  been  dashed  down,  God's 
beautiful  admonitions  hover,  a  warning  arching  each  peril 
— six  of  them,  fifty  of  them — a  thousand  of  them.  Be- 
ware! beware!  beware! 

This  afternoon,  young  men,  while  you  have  time  to 
reflect  upon  these  things,  and  before  the  duties  of  the 
office  and  the  store,  and  the  shop,  come  upon  you  again, 
look  over  this  whole  subject,  and  after  the  day  has  pass- 
ed, and  you  hear  in  the  nightfall  the  voices  and  the  foot- 
steps of  the  city  dying  from  your  ear,  and  it  gets  so  silent 
that  you  can  hear  distinctly  your  watch  under  your  pillow 
going  "tick,  tick!"  then  open  your  eyes  and  look  out 
upon  the  darkness,  and  see  two  pillars  of  light,  one  hor- 
izontal, the  other  perpendicular,  but  changing  their  di- 
rection until  they  come  together,  and  your  enraptured 
visions  beholds  it — the  cross! 


=r=^^^ 


ASTRAY,   BUT  RECOVERED. 

CHRIST  CAN  SAVE  ALL.      . 


'All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray;  we  have  turned  every  one  to  his 
own  work;  and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all." — Isaiah 
Liii,  6. 

Within  ninety  years  at  the  longest  all  who  hear  or  read 
this  sermon  will  be  in  eternity.  During  the  next  fifty 
years  you  will  nearly  all  be  gone.  The  next  ten  years 
will  cut  a  wide  swath  among  the  people.  The  year  1891 
will  to  some  be  the  finality.  Such  considerations  make 
this  occasion  absorbing  and  momentous. 

The  first  half  of  my  text  is  an  indictment.  ''All  we 
like  sheep  have  gone  astray."  Some  one  says:  "Can 
you  not  drop  the  first  word?  That,  is  too  general  that 
sweeps  too  great  a  circle."  Some  man  rises  in  the  au- 
dience and  he  looks  over  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  house 
and  he  says,  "There  is  a  blasphemer,  and  I  understand 
how  he  has  gone  astray.  And  there  is  an  impure  person, 
and  he  has  gone  astray." 

THE  TEXT  TAKES  US  ALL  IN. 

Sit  down,  my  brother  and  look  at  home.  My  text 
takes  us  all  in.  It  starts  behind  the  pulpit,  sweeps  the 
circuit  of  the  room  and  comes  back  to  the  point  where 
it  started  when  it  says,  "All  we  like  sheep  have  gone 
astray."  I  can  very  easily  understand  why  Martin  Luther 
threw  up  his  hands  after  he  had  found  the  Bible  and 
cried  out.        "Oh!  my  sins,  my  sins,"  and  why  the  publi- 

(371) 


372  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

can,  according  to  the  custom  to  this  day  in  the  east  when 
they  have  any  great  grief,  began  to  beat  himself  and  cry 
as  he  smote  upon  his  breast,  "God  be  merciful  to  me  a 
sinner." 

ILLUSTRATION    FROM  THE    SHEPHARD's    LIFE. 

I  was,  like  many  of  you  brought  up  in  the  country;  and 
I  know  some  of  the  habits  of  sheep  and  how  they  get 
astray,  and  what  my  text  means  when  it  says,  "All  we 
like  sheep  have  gone  astray."  Sheep  get  astray  in  two 
ways,  either  by  trying  to  get  in  other  pastures,  or  from 
being  scared  by  the  dogs.  In  the  former  way  some  of 
us  got  astray.  We  thought  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ 
short  commons.  We  thought  there  was  better  pastur- 
age somewhere  else.  We  thought  if  we  could  only  lie 
down  on  the  banks  or  distant  streams  or  under  great 
oaks  on  the  other  side  of  some  hill  we  might  be  better 
fed. 

We  wanted  other  pasturage  than  that  which  God 
through  Jesus  Christ  gave  our  soul,  and  we  wandered  on 
and  we  were  lost.  We  wanted  bread  and  we  found  gar- 
bage. The  further  we  wandered,  instead  of  finding  rich 
pasturage,  we  found  blasted  heath  and  sharper  rocks  and 
more  stinging  nettles.  No  pasture.  How  was  it  in  the 
worldly  groups  when  you  lost  your  child?  Did  they 
come  around  and  console  you  very  much?  Did  not  the 
plain  Christian  man  who  came  into  your  house  and  sat 
up  with  your  darling  child  give  you  more  comfort  than 
all  worldly  associations?  Did  all  the  convival  songs  you 
ever  heard  comfort  you  in  that  day  of  bereavement  so 
much  as    the  song   they  sang    to    you,  perhaps  the  very 


ASTRAY,  BUT  RECOVERED.  373 

song  that  was  sung  by    your  little  child  the    last  Sabbath 

afternoon  of  her  life. 

There  is  a  happy  land  far,  far  away, 

Where  saints  immortal  reign,  bright,   bright  as  day, 

Did  your  business  associates  in  that  day  of  darkness 
and  trouble  give  you  any  especial  condolence?  Business 
exasperated  you,  business  wore  you  out,  business  left  you 
as  limp  as  a  rag,  business  made  you  mad.  You  got  dol- 
lars, but  you  got  no  peace.  God  have  mercy  on  the  man 
who  has  nothing  but  business  to  comfort  him.  The  world 
afforded  you  no  luxurious  pasturage. 

AN  INCIDENT  OF    AN  ACTOR. 

A  famous  English  actor  stood  on  the  stage  impersona- 
ting, and  thunders  of  applause  came  down  from  the  gal- 
leries, and  many  thought  it  was  the  proudest  moment  of 
all  his  life;  but  there  was  a  man  asleep  just  in  front  of 
him,  and  the  fact  that  that  man  was  indifferent  and 
somnolent  spoiled  all  the  occasion  for  him,  and  he  cried, 
"Wake  up!  Wake  up!" 

Some  little  annoyance  in  life  has  been  more  pervading 
to  your  mind  than  all  the  brilliant  congratulations  and 
successes.  Poor  pasturage  for  your  soul  you  found  in 
this  world.  The  world  has  cheated  you,  the  world  has 
belied  you,  the  world  has  misinterpreted  you,  the  world 
has  persecuted  you-  It  never  comforted  you.  Oh!  this 
world  is  a  good  rack  from  which  a  horse  may  pick  his 
hay;  it  is  a  good  trough  from  which  the  swine  may 
crunch  their  mess;  but  it  gives  but  little  food  to  a  soul 
blood  bought  and  immortal. 

WHAT  IS     A  SOUL? 

What  is  a  soul?       It  is  a  hope   high  as  the    throne  of 


374  EVILS    OF    THE  CITIES. 

God.  What  is  a  man?  You  say,  "It  is  only  a  man.'' 
It  is  only  a  man  gone  overboard  in  business  life. 

What  is  a  man?  The  battle  grounds  of  three  worlds, 
with  his  hands  taking  hold  of  destinies  of  light  or  dark- 
ness. 

A  man!  No  line  can  measure  him.  No  limit  can  bound 
him.  The  archangel  before  the  throne  can  not  outlive 
him.  The  stars  shall  die,  but  he  will  watch  their  ex- 
tinguishment. The  world  will  burn,  but  he  will  gaze  on 
the  conflagration.  Endless  ages  will  march  on;  he  will 
watch  the  procession. 

A  man!  The  masterpiece  of  God  Almighty.  Yet  you 
say,  "It  is  only  a  man."  Can  a  nature  like  that  be  fed 
on  husks  of  the  wilderness? 

Substantial  comfort  will  not  grow 

On  nature's  barren  soil; 
All  we  can  boast  till  Christ  we  know 

Is  vanity  and  toil. 

THOSE  WHO    STRAY  IN  TROUBLE. 

Some  of  you  got  astray  by  looking  for  better  pastur- 
age; others  by  being  scared  of  the  dogs.  The  hound  gets 
over  into  the  pasturage  field.  The  poor  things  fly  in 
every  direction.  In  a  few  moments  they  are  torn  of  the 
hedges  and  they  are  plashed  of  the  ditch,  and  the  lost 
sheep  never  gets  home  unless  the  farmer  goes  after  it. 

There  is  nothing  so  thoroughly  lost  as  a  lost  sheep. 
It  may  have  been  in  1857,  during  the  financial  panic,  or 
during  the  financial  stress  of  1873,  when  you  got  astray. 
You  almost  became  an  atheist.  You  said,  '-Where  is 
God,  that  honest  men  go  down  and  thieves  prosper?" 
You  were  dogged  of  creditors,  you  were  dogged  of  the 
banks,  you  were  dogged  of  worldly  disaster,  and  sonic  of 


ASTRAY,  BUT  RECOVERED.  375 

you  went  into  misanthropy,  and  some  of  you  took  to 
strong  drink,  and  others  of  you  fled  out  of  Christian  as- 
sociation, and  you  got  astray.  O  man!  that  was  the  last 
time  when  you  ought  to  have  forsaken  God. 

Standing  amid  the  foundering  of  your  earthly  fortunes, 
how  could  you  get  along  without  a  God  to  comfort  you, 
and  a  God  to  deliver  you,  and  a  God  to  help  you,  and  a 
God  to  save  you?  You  tell  me  you  have  been  through 
enough  business  trouble  almost  to  kill  you.  I  know  it. 
I  cannot  understand  how  the  boat  could  live  one  hour  in 
that  chopped  sea.  But  I  do  not  know  by  what  process 
you  got  astray,  some  in  one  way  and  some  in  another, 
and  if  you  could  really  see  the  position  some  of  you  oc- 
cupy before  God  this  morning,  your  soul  would  burst 
into  an  agony  of  tears  and  you  would  pelt  the  heavens 
with  the  cry,  '  'God  have  mercy!"  Sinai's  batteries  have 
been  unlimbered  above  your  soul,  and  at  times  you  have 
heard  it  thunder:  "The  wages  of  sin  is  death."  "All 
have  sinned  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God."  "By 
one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death  by  sin; 
and  so  death  passed  upon  all  men  for  that  all  have 
sinned."      "The  soul  that  sinned  it  shall  die." 

THE  BOMBARDMENT  OF  SEBASTOPOL. 

When  Sebastopol  was  being  bombarded,  two  Russian 
frigates  burned  all  night  in  the  harbor  throwing  a  glare 
upon  the  trembling  fortress,  and  some  of  you  are  stand- 
ing in  the  night  of  your  soul's  trouble.  The  cannonade 
and  the  conflagration,  the  multiplication  of  your  sorrows 
and  troubles  I  think  must  make  the  wing  of  God's  hover- 
ing angels  shiver  to  the  tip. 

But  the  Jast  part  of  my  text  opens    a  door  wide  enough 


376  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

to  let  us  all  out  and  to  let  all  heaven  in.  Sound  it  on 
the  organ  with  all  the  stops  out.  Thrum  it  on  the  harp 
with  all  the  strings  atune.  With  all  the  melody  possible 
let  the  heavens  sound  it  to  the  earth  and  let  the  earth 
tell  it  to  the  heavens.  "The  Lord  hath  laid  on  him  the 
iniquity  of  us  all."  I  am  glad  that  the  prophet  did  not 
stop  to  explain  whom  he  meant  by  "him."  Him  of  the 
manger,  him  of  the  bloody  sweat,  him  of  the  resurrection 
throne,  him  of  the  crucifixion  agony.  "On  him  the 
Lord  hath  laid  the  iniquity  of  us  all." 

CHRIST    COMES  TO  THE    FALLEN. 

"Oh,"  says  some  man,  "that  is  not  generous,  that  is 
not  fair;  let  every  man  carry  his  own  burden  and  pay  his 
own  debts."  That  sounds  reasonable.  If  I  have  an 
obligation  and  I  have  the  means  to  meet  it,  and  I  come 
to  you  and  ask  you  to  settle  that  obligation,  you  rightly 
say,  "Pay  your  own  debts."  If  you  and  I  walking  down 
the  street,  both  hale,  hearty  and  well,  I  ask  you  to  carry 
me,  you  say,  and  say  rightly,  "Walk  on  your  own  feet!" 
But  suppose  you  and  I  were  in  a  regimeut  and  I  was 
wounded  in  the  battle  and  I  fell  unconscious  at  your 
feet  with  gunshot  fractures  and  dislocations,  what  would 
you  do?  You  would  call  to  your  comrades  saying, 
"Come  and  help,  this  man  is  helpless;  bring  the  ambu- 
lance; let  us  take  him  to  the  hospital,"  and  I  would  be  a 
dead  lift  in  your  arms,  and  you  would  lift  me  from  the 
ground  where  I  had  fallen  and  put  me  in  the  ambulance 
and  take  me  to  the  hospital  and  have  all  kindness  shown 
me.  Would  there  be  anything  mean  in  your  doing  that? 
Would  there    be   anything    bemeaning    in  my    accepting 


ASTRAY,  BUT  RECOVERED.  .  377 

that  kindness?     Oh,  no.      You  would  be  mean  not  to  do 
it.      That  is  what  Christ  does. 

If  we  could  pay  our  debts  then  it  would  be  better  to 
go  up  and  pay  them,  saying,  "Here,  Lord,  here  is  my 
obligation;  here  are  the  means  with  which  I  mean  to 
settle  that  obligation;  now  give  me  a  receipt,  cross  it  all 
out."  The  debt  is  paid.  But  the  fact  is  we  have  fallen 
in  the  battle,  we  have  gone  down  under  the  hot  fire  of 
our  transgressions,  we  have  been  wounded  by  the  sabers 
of  sin,  we  are  helpless  we  are  undone.  Christ  comes. 
The  cloud  clang  heard  in  the  sky  on  that  Christmas  night 
was  only  the  bell,  the  resounding  bell,  of  the  ambulance- 
Clear  the  way  for  the  Son  of  God.  He  comes  down  to 
bind  up  thy  wounds,  and  to  scatter  the  darkness,  and  to 
save  the  lost.      Clear  the  way  for  the  Son  of  God. 

CHRIST    PAYS    THE    DEBT. 

Christ  comes  down  to  see  us,  and  we  are  dead  lift. 
He  does  not  lift  us  with  the  tips  of  his  fingers.  He  does 
not  lift  us  with  one  arm.  He  comes  down  upon  his  knee, 
and  then  with  a  dead  lift  he  raises  us  to  honor  and  glory 
and  immortality.  "The  Lord  hath  laid  on  him  the  in- 
iquity of  us  all."  "Why,  then,  will  no  man  carry  his 
sins?  You  cannot  carry  successfully  the  smallest  sin  you 
ever  committed.  You  might  as  well  put  the  Apenines 
on  one  shoulder  and  the  Alps  on  the  other.  How  much 
less  can  you  carry  all  the  sins  of  your  lifetime?  Christ 
comes  and  looks  down  in  your  face  and  says:  "I  have 
come  through  all  the  lacerations  of  these  days  and 
through  all  the  tempests  of  these  nights.  I  have  come 
to  bear  your  burdens,  and  to  pardon  your  sins,  and  to 
pay  your  debts.      Put  them  on  my  shoulder;  put  them  on 


37§  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

my  heart."      "On  him  the  Lord  hath  laid  the  iniquity  of 
us  all." 

Sin  has  almost  pestered  the  life  out  of  some  of  you. 
At  times  it  has  made  you  cross  and  unreasonable,  and  it 
has  spoiled  the  brightness  of  your  days  and  the  peace  of 
your  nights.  There  are  men  who  have  been  riddled  of 
sin.  The  world  gives  them  no  solace.  Gossamer  and 
volatile  the  world,  while  eternity,  as  they  look  forward 
to  it,  is  as  black  as  midnight.  They  writhe  under  the 
stings  of  a  conscience  which  proposes  to  give  no  rest 
here  and  no  rest  hereafter;  and  yet  they  do  not  repent, 
they  do  not  pray,  they  do  not  weep.  They  do  not  realize 
that  just  the  position  they  occupy  is  the  position  occu- 
pied by  scores,  hundreds  and  thousands  of  men  who 
never  found  any  hope. 

If  this  meeting  should  be  thrown  open  and  the  people 
who  are  here  could  give  their  testimony,  what  thrilling 
experiences  we  should  hear  on  all  sides! 

There  is  a  man  in  the  gallery  who  would  say:  "I  had 
brilliant  surroundings,  I  had  the  best  education  that  one 
of  the  best  collegiate  institutions  of  this  country  could 
give,  and  I  observed  all  the  moralities  of  life,  and  I  was 
self  righteous,  and  I  thought  I  was  all  right  before  God 
as  I  am  all  right  before  men,  but  the  Holy  Spirit  came 
to  me  one  day  and  said,  'You  are  a  sinner;'  the  Holy 
Spirit  persuaded  me  of  the  fact.  While  I  had  escaped 
the  sins  against  the  law  of  the  land  I  had  really  commit- 
ted the  worst  sin  a  man  ever  commits — the  driving  back 
of  the  son  of  God  from  my  heart's  affections.  And  I  saw 
that  my  hands  were  red  with  the  blood  of  the  Son  of 
God,  and  I  began  to  pray,  and  peace  came    to  my  heart, 


ASTRAY,  BUT  RECOVERED.  379 

and  I  know  by  experience  that  what  you  say  this  morning 
is  true,  "On  him  the  Lord  hath  laid  the  iniquities  of  us 
all." 

Yonder  is  a  man  who  would  say,  "I  was  the  worst 
drunkard  in  New  York;  I  went  from  bad  to  worse;  I  de- 
stroyed myself,  I  destroyed  my  home;  my  children  cower- 
ed when  I  entered  the  house;  when  they  put  up  their  lips 
to  be  kissed  I  struck  them;  when  my  wife  protested 
against  the  maltreatment,  I  kicked  her  into  the  street. 
I  know  all  the  bruises  and  all  the  terrors  of  a  druukard's 
woe.  I  went  on  further  and  further  from  God  until  one 
day  I  got  a  letter  saying: 

"My  Dear  Husband — I  have  tried  every  way,  done 
everything,  and  prayed  earnestly  and  fervently  for  your 
reformation,  but  it  seems  of  no  avail.  Since  our  little 
Henry  died,  with  the  exception  of  those  few  happy  weeks 
when  you  remained  sober,  my  life  has  been  one  of  sor- 
row. Many  of  the  nights  I  have  sat  by  the  window,  with 
my  face  bathed  in  tears,  watching  for  your  coming.  I 
am  broken  hearted,  I  am  sick.  Mother  and  father  have 
been  here  frequently  and  begged  me  to  come  home,  but 
my  love  for  you  and  my  hope  for  brighter  days  have  al- 
ways made  me  refuse  them.  That  hope  seems  now  be- 
yond realization,  and  I  have  returned  to  them.  It  is 
hard,  and  I  battled  long  before  doing  it.  May  God  bless 
and  preserve  you,  and  take  from  you  that  accursed  appe- 
tite and  hasten  the  day  when  we  shall  be  again  living 
happily  together.  This  will  be  my  daily  prayer,  knowing 
that  he  has  said,  "Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labor  and 
are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  From  your 
loving  wife,  Mary, 


380  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

"And  so  I  wandered  on  and  wandered  on,"  says  that 
man,  "until  one  night  I  passed  a  Methodist  meeting 
house,  and  I  said  to  myself,  "I'll  go  in  and  see  what 
they  are  doing,"  and  I  got  to  the  door,  and  they  were 
singing: 

All  may  come,  whoever  will, 

This  man  receives  poor  sinners  still. 

"And  I  dropped  right  there  where  I  was  and  I  said, 
'God  have  mercy,'  and  he  had  mercy  on  me.  My  home 
is  restored,  my  wife  sings  all  day  long  during  work,  my 
children  come  out  a  long  way  to  greet  me  home,  and  my 
household  is  a  little  heaven.  I  will  tell  you  what  did  all 
this  for  me.  It  was  the  truth  that  this  day  you  pro- 
claim,  "On  him  the  Lord  hath  laid  the  iniquity  of  us  all." 

JESUS  AND  THE  PRODIGAL  DAUGHTER 

Yonder  there  is  a  woman  who  would  say:  "I  wander- 
ed off  from  my  father's  house;  I  heard  the  storm  that 
pelts  on  a  lost  soul;  my  feet  were  blistered  on  the  hot 
rocks.  I  went  on  and  on,  thinking  that  no  one  cared 
for  my  soul,  when  one  night    Jesus    met  me  and  he  said: 

"Poor  thing,  go  home!  your  father  is  waiting  for  you, 
your  mother  is  waiting  for  you.       Go  home,  poor  thing!'' 

And,  sir,  I  was  too  weak  to  pray,  and  I  was  too  weak 
to  repent,  but  I  just  cried  out;  I  sobbed  out  my  sins  and 
my  sorrows  on  the  shoulders  of  him  of  whom  it  is  said, 
"the  Lord  hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all." 

There  is  a  young  man  who  would  say:  "I  had  a  Chris- 
tian bringing  up;  I  came  from  the  country  to  city  life;  I 
statted  well,  I  had  a  good  position,  a  good  commercial 
position,  but  one  night  at  the  theatre  I  met  some  young 
men  who  did  me  no  good.      They  dragged  me  all  through 


ASTRAY,    BUT  RECOVERED.  38 1 

the  sewers  of  iniquity,  and  I  lost  my  morals  and  I  lost 
my  position,  and  I  was  shabby  and  wretched.  I  was 
going  down  the  street,  thinking  that  no  one  cared  for  me, 
when  a  young  man  tapped  me  on  the  shoulder  and  said: 
'George,  come  with  me  and  I  will  do  you  good.' 
I  looked  at  him  to  see  whether  he  was  joking  or  not. 
I  saw  he  was  in  earnest  and  I  said,    'What  do  you  mean, 


sir 


'Well,'  he  replied,  'I  mean  if  you  will  come  to  the 
meeting  to-night  I  will  be  very  glad  to  introduce  you. 
I  will  meet  you  at  the  door.      Will  you  come?' 

Said  I,    'I  will.' 

"I  went  to  the  place  where  I  was  tarrying.  I  fixed 
myself  up  as  well  as  I  could.  I  buttoned  my  coat  over 
a  ragged  vest  and  went  to  the  door  of  the  church,  and 
the  young  man  met  me  and  we  went  in;  and  as  I  went 
in  I  heard  an  old  man  praying,  and  he  looked  so  much 
like  my  father  I  sobbed  right  out;  and  they  were  all 
around  so  kind  and  sympathetic  that  I  just  gave  my 
heart  to  God,  and  I  know  this  morning  that  what  you 
say  is  true;  I  believe  it  in  my  own  experience.  'On  him 
the  Lord  hath  laid  the  iniquity  of  us  all.' " 

COME  AND  BE  SAVED. 

Oh,  my  brother,  without  stopping  to  look  as  to  whether 
your  hand  trembles  or  not,  without  stopping  to  look 
whether  your  hand  is  bloated  with  sin  or  not,  put  it  in 
my  hand,  let  me  give  you  one  warm,  brotherly,  Christian 
grip,  and  invite  you  right  up  to  the  heart,  to  the  com- 
passion, to  the  sympathy,  to  the  pardon  of  him  on  whom 
the  Lord  had  laid  the  iniquity  of  us  all.  Throw  away 
your  sins.      Carry  them  no  longer.       I  proclaim  emanci- 


382  EVILS    OF    THE    CITIES. 

pation  this  morning  to   all  who  are  bound,  pardon  for  all 
sin,  and  eternal  life  for  all  the  dead. 

CHRIST   CAN  BEAR  AWAY  THE  SINS  OF  ALL.      , 

Some  one  comes  here  this  morning,  and  I  stand  aside. 
He  comes  up  these  steps.  He  comes  to  this  place.  I 
must  stand  aside.  Taking  that  place  he  spreads  abroad 
his  hands  and  they  were  nailed.  You  see  his  feet,  they 
were  bruised.  He  pulls  aside  the  robe  and  shows  you 
his  wounded  heart. 

I  say,   "Art  thou  weary?" 

"Yes,"  he  says,  "weary  with  the  world's  woe." 

I  say,    "Whence  comest  thou?" 

He  says,   "I  come  from  Calvary." 

I  say,    "Who  comes  with  thee?" 

He  says,  "No  one;  I  have  trodden  the  winepress 
alone!" 

I  say,    "Why  comest  thou  here?" 

"Oh,"  he  says,  "I  came  here  to  carry  all  the  sins  and 
sorrows  of  the  people." 

And  he  kneels  and  he  says,  "Put  on  my  shoulders  all 
the  sorrows  and  all  the  sins."  And,  conscious  of  my 
own  sins  first,  I  take  them  and  put  them  on  the  shoulders 
of  the  son  of  God.       I  say,    "Canst  thou  bear  any  more, 

0  Christ?" 

He  says,    "Yea,  more." 

And  I  gather  up  the  sins  of  all  those  who  serve  at 
these  altars,  and  officers  of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ — 

1  gather  up    all    their    sins    and    put    them    on  Christ's 
shoulders,  and  I  say,   "Canst  thou  bear  any  more?" 

He  says,   "Yea,  more." 

Then  I  gather  up  the  sins    of  a  hundred  people  in  this 


ASTRAY,  BUT  RECOVERED.  383 

house,  and  I  put  them  on  the  shoulders  of  Christ,  and  I 
say,    "Canst  thou  bear  more?" 

He  says,    "Yea,  more." 

And  I  gather  up  all  the  sins  of  this  assembly,  and  I 
put  them  on  the  shoulders  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  I  say, 
"Canst  thou  bear  them?" 

"Yea,"  he  says,   "more." 

But  he  is  departing.  Clear  the  way  for  him,  the  Son 
of  God.  Open  the  door  and  let  him  pass  out.  He  is 
carrying  our  sins  and  bearing  them  away.  We  shall 
never  see  them  again.  He  throws  them  down  into  the 
abysm,  and  you  hear  the  long  reverbating  echo  of  their 
fall.        Oh  him  the  Lord  hath  laid  the  iniquity  of  us  all/ 

Will  you  let  him  take  away  your  sins  to-day?  Or  do 
you  say,  "I  will  take  charge  of  them  myself;  I  will  fight 
my  own  battles;  I  will  risk  eternity  on  my  own  ac- 
counts?" 

A  clergyman  said  in  his  pulpit  one  Sabbath,  "Before 
next  Saturday  night  one  of  this  audience  will  have  passed 
out  of  life."  A  gentleman  said  to  another  seated  next  to 
him:  "I  don't  believe  it.  I  mean  to  watch,  and  if  it 
doesn't  come  true  by  next  Saturday  night  I  shall  tell  that 
clergyman  his  falsehood. " 

The  man  seated  next  to  him  said,  "Perhaps  it  will  be 
yourself." 

"Oh,  no,"  the  other  replied:  "I  shall  live  to  be  an  old 
man." 

That  night  he  breathed  his  last. 

WHOSOEVER  WILL,      LET  HIM  COME. 

To-day  the  Saviour  calls.  All  may  come.  God  never 
destroys  anybody.       The  man  jumps  off.      It  is  suicide — 


384  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

soul  suicide — if  the  man  perishes,  for  the  invitation  is, 
'Whosoever  will  let  him  come."  Whosoever,  whosoever, 
whosoever!  In  this  day  of  merciful  visitation,  while 
many  are  coming  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  join  the  pro- 
cession heavenward. 

Seated  among  us  during  the  service  was  a  man  who 
came  in  and  said,   "I  don't  know*that  there  is  any  God.'' 

That  was  on  Friday  night.  I  said,  "We  will  kneel 
down  and  find  out  whether  there  is  any  God."  And  in 
the  second  seat  from  the  pulpit  we  knelt. 

He  said:  "I  have  found  him.  There  is  a  God,  a  par- 
doning God.      I  feel  him  here." 

He  knelt  in  the  darkness  of  sin.  He  arose  two 
minutes  afterwards  in  the  liberty  of  the  Gospel. 

While  another  sitting  under  the  gallery  on  Friday  night 
said:  "My  opportunity  is  gone;  last  week  I  might  have 
been  saved,  not  now;  the  door  is  shut." 

And  another  from  the  very  midst  of  the  meeting,  dur- 
ing the  week,  rushed  out  of  the  front  door  of  the  Taber- 
nacle, saying,    "I  am  a  lost  man." 

'  'Behold!  the  Lamb  of  God  who  taketh  away  the  sins  of 
the  world."  "Now  is  the  accepted  time.  Now  is  the 
day  of  salvation."  "It  is  appointed  unto  all  men  once 
to  die,  and  after  that — the  judgment!" 


REBUILDING    THE    CITY. 


"Then  I  went  up  in  the  night  by  the  brook,  and  viewed  the  wall,  nn<ar 
turned  back,  and  entered  by  the  gate  of  the  valley,  and  so  returned." — 
Nehemiah,  ii,  15. 

P*  dead  city  is  more  suggestive  than  a  living  city — 
I  past  Rome  than  present  Rome — ruins  rather  than 
sknewly  frescoed  cathedral.  But  the  best  time  to 
visit  a  ruin  is  by  moonlight.  The  Coliseum  is  far  more 
fascinating  to  the  traveler  after  sundown  than  before. 
You  may  stand  by  daylight  amid  the  monastic  ruins  of 
Melrose  Abbey  and  study  shafted  oriel,  and  rosetted  stone 
and  mullion,  but  they  throw  their  strongest  witchery  by 
moonlight.  Some  of  you  remember  what  the  enchanter 
of  Scotland  said  in  the  "Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel:" 

Would'st  thou  view  fair  Melrose  aright, 
Go  visit  it  by  the  pale  moonlight, 
JERUSALEM  IN  RUINS. 

Washington  Irving  describes  the  Andalusian  moonlight 
upon  the  Alhambra  ruins  as  amounting  to  an  enchant- 
ment. My  text  presents  you  Jerusalam  in  ruins.  The  tow- 
er down.  The  gates  down.  The  walls  down.  Everything 
down.  Nehemiah  on  horseback,  by  moonlight  looking 
upon  the  ruins.  While  he  rides  there  are  some  friends 
on  foot  going  with  him,  for  they  do  not  want  the  many 
horses  to  disturb  the  suspicions  of  the  people.  These 
people  do  not  know  the  secret  of  Nehemiah's  heart,  but 
they  are  going  as  a  sort  of  body  guard.  I  hear  the  click- 
ing hoofs  of  the    horse  on    which  Nehemiah    rides  as  he 

[385] 


386  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

guides  it  this  way  and  that,  into  this  gate  and  out  of 
that,  winding  through  that  gate  amid  the  debris  of  once 
great  Jerusalem.  Now  the  horse  comes  to  a  dead  halt 
at  the  tumbled  masonry  where  he  cannot  pass.  Now  he 
shies  off  at  the  charred  timbers.  Now  he  comes  along 
where  the  water  under  the  moonlight  flashes  from  the 
mouth  of  the  brazen  dragon  after  which  the  gate  was 
named.  Heavy  hearted  Nehemiah!  Riding  in  and  out 
now  by  his  old  home  desolated,  now  by  the  defaced 
temple,  now  amid  the  scars  of  that  city  that  had  gone 
down  under  battering  ram  and  conflagation. 

The  escorting  party  knows  not  what  Nehemiah  means. 
Is  he  getting  crazy?  Have  his  own  personal  sorrows, 
added  to  the  sorrows  of  the  nation,  unbalanced  his  in- 
tellect? Still  the  midnight  exploration  goes  on.  Nehe- 
miah on  horseback  rides  through  the  fish  gate,  by  the 
tower  of  the  furnaces,  by  the  king's  pool,  by  the  dragon 
well,  in  and  out,  in  and  out,  until  the  midnight  ride  is 
completed,  and  Nehemiah  dismounts  from  his  horse,  and 
to  the  amazed  and  confounded  and  incredulous  body 
guard  declares  the  dead  secret  of  his  heart  when  he  says. 

"Come,  now,  let  us  build  Jerusalem." 

"What!  Nehemiah,  have  you  any  money?" 

"No." 

"Have  you  any  kingly  authority?" 

"No." 

"Have  you  any  eloquence?" 

"No."   " 

Yet  that  midnight,  moonlight  ride  of  Nehemiah  re- 
sulted in  the  glorious  rebuilding  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem. 


REBUILDING    THE  CITY.  387 

The  people  knew  not  how  the  thing  was  to  be  done,  but 
with  great  enthusiasm  they  cried  out: 

"Let  us  rise  up  now  and  build  the  city." 
Some  people  laughed  and  said  it  could  not  be  done. 
Some  people  were  infuriate  and  offered  physical  violence, 
saying  the  thing  should  not  be  done.  But  the  workmen 
went  right  on,  standing  on  the  wall,  trowel  in  one  hand, 
sword  in  the  other  until  the  work  was  gloriously  com- 
pleted. At  that  very  time,  in  Greece,  Xenophon  was 
writing  a  history,  and  Plato  was  making  philosophy,  and 
Demosthenes  was  rattling  his  rhetorical  thunder,  but  all 
of  them  together  did  not  do  so  much  for  the  world  as 
this  midnight,  moonlight  ride  of  praying,  courageous, 
homesick,  close  mouthed  Nehemiah. 

LOVE  OF    JERUSALEM. 

My  subject  first  impresses  me  with  the  idea  what  an 
intense  thing  is  church  affection.  Seize  the  bridle  of  that 
horse  and  stop  Nehemiah.  Why  are  you  risking  your 
life  here  in  the  night?  Your  horse  will  stumble  over 
these  ruins  and  fall  on  you.  Stop  this  useless  exposure  of 
your  life.  No;  Nehemiah  will  not  stop.  He  at  last  tells 
us  the  whole  story.  He  lets  us  know  he  was  an  exile  in 
a  far  distant  land,  and  he  was  a  servant,  a  cup  bearer  in 
the  palace  of  Artaxerxes  Longimanus,  and  one  day  while 
he  was  handing  the  cup  of  wine  to  the  king,  the  king  said 
to  him: 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you?  You  are  not  sick.  I 
know  you  must  have  some  great  trouble.  What  is  the 
matter  with  you?" 

Then  he  told  the  king  how  that  beloved  Jerusalem  was 
broken  down;  how  that  his  father's  tomb  had  been  dese- 


388  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

crated;  how  that  the  Temple  had  been  dishonored  and 
defaced;  how  that  the    walls  were  scattered    and  broken. 

"Well,"  says  King  Artaxerxes,   "what  do  you  want?" 

'■Well,"  said  the  cup  bearer  Nehemiah,  "I  want  to  go 
home.  I  want  to  fix  up  the  grave  of  my  father.  I  want 
to  restote  the  beauty  of  the  Temple.  I  want  to  rebuild 
the  masonry  of  the  city  wall.  Besides,  I  want  passports 
so  that  I  shall  not  be  hindered  in  my  journey.  And  be- 
sides that,"  as  you  will  find  in  the  context,  'T  want  an 
order  on  the  man  who  keeps  your  forest  for  just  so  much 
timber  as  I  may  need  for  the  rebuilding  of  the  city." 

"How  long  shall  you  be  gone?"  said  the  king. 

The  time  of  absence  is  arranged.  In  hot  haste  this 
seeming  adventurer  comes  to  Jerusalem,  and  in  my 
text  we  find  him  on  horseback  in  the  midnight,  riding 
around  the  ruins. 

LOVE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

It  is  through  the  spectacles  of  this  scene  that  we  dis- 
cover the  ardent  attachment  of  Nehemiah  for  sacred  Jeru- 
salem, which  in  all  ages  has  been  the  type  of  the  church 
of  God,  our  Jerusalem,  which  we  love  just  as  much  as 
Nehemiah  loved  his  Jerusalem.  The  fact  is  that  you 
love  the  church  of  God  so  much  that  there  is  no  spot  on 
earth  so  sacred,  unless  it  is  your  own  fireside.  The 
church  has  been  to  you  so  much  comfort  and  illumination 
that  there  is  nothing  that  makes  you  so  irate  as  to  have 
it  talked  against.  If  there  have  been  times  when  you 
have  been  carried  into  captivity  by  sickness,  you  longed 
for  the  church,  our  holy  Jerusalem,  just  as  much  as  Nehe- 
miah longed  for  his  Jerusalem,  and  the  fust  day  you  came 
out  you    came    to    the    house  of  the  Lord.        When    the 


REBUILDING  THE  CITY.  389 

Temple  was  in  ruins  as  ours  was  years  ago,  like  Nehe- 
miah,  you  walked  around  and  looked  at  it,  and  in  the 
moonlight  you  stood  listening  if  you  could  not  hear  the 
voice  of  the  dead  organ,  the  psalm  of  the  expired  Sab- 
baths. 

What  Jerusalem  was  to  Nehemiah,  the  church  of  God 
is  to  you.  Skeptics  and  infidels  may  scoff  at  the  church 
as  an  obsolete  affair,  as  a  relic  of  the  dark  ages,  as  a 
convention  of  goody  goody  people,  but  all  the  impression 
they  have  ever  made  on  your  mind  against  the  church  of 
God  is  absolutely  nothing.  You  would  make  more  sac- 
rifices for  it  to-day  than  for  any  other  institution,  and  if 
it  were  needful  you  would  die  in  its  defense.  You  can 
take  the  words  of  the  kingly  poet  as  he  said,  "If  I  forget 
thee,  O  Jerusalem,  let  my  right  hand  forget  her  cun- 
ning."  You  understand  in  your  own  experience  the 
pathos,  the  homesickness,  the  courage,  the  holy  enthu- 
siasm of  Nehemiah  in  his  midnight,  moonlight  ride  around 
the  ruins  of  his  beloved  Jerusalem. 

EXPLORATION  BEFORE  RESTORATION. 

Again,  my  text  impresses  me  with  the  fact  that,  before 
reconstruction,  there  must  be  an  exploration  of  ruins. 
Why  was  not  Nehemiah  asleep  under  the  covers?  Why 
was  not  his  horse  stabled  in  the  midnight?  Let  the 
police  of  the  city  arrest  this  midnight  rider,  out  on  some 
mischief.  No.  Nehemiah  is  going  to  rebuild  the  city, 
and  he  is  making  the  preliminary  exploration.  In  this 
gate,  out  that  gate,  east,  west,  north,  south.  All  through 
the  ruins.  The  ruins  must  be  explored  before  the  work 
of  reconstruction  can  begin.  The  rlason  that  so  many 
people   in  this    day,  apparently   converted,    do  not   stay 


390  EVILS    OF  THE    CITIES. 

converted  is  because  they  did  not  first  explore  the  ruins 
of  their  own  heart.  The  reason  that  there  are  so  many 
professed  Christians  who  in  this  day  lie  and  forge  and 
steal,  and  commit  adultery,  and  go  to  the  penitentiary,  is 
because  they  first  do  not  learn  the  rain  of  their  own 
heart.  They  have  not  found  out  that  ''the  heart  is  de- 
ceitful above  all  things,  and  desperately  wicked."  They 
had  an  idea  that  they  were  almost  right,  and  they  built 
religion  as  a  sort  of  extension,  as  an  ornamental  cupola. 
There  was  a  superstructure  of  religion  built  on  a  substra- 
tum of  unrepented  sins. 

Christ's  way. 

The  trouble  with  a  good  deal  of  modern  theology  is 
that  instead  of  building  on  the  right  foundation,  it  builds 
on  the  debris  of  an  unregenerated  nature.  They  attempt 
to  rebuild  Jerusalem  before,  in  the  midnight  of  convic- 
tion, that  they  have  seen  the  ghastliness  of  the  ruin. 
They  have  such  a  poor  foundation  for  their  religion  that 
the  first  northeast  storm  of  temptation  blows  them  down. 
I  have  no  faith  in  a  man's  conversion  if  he  is  not  con- 
verted in  the  old  fashioned  way — John  Bunyan's  way, 
John  Wesley's  way,  John  Calvin's  way,  Paul's  way, 
Christ's  way,  God's  way.      A  dentist  once  said  to  me: 

"Does  that  hurt?" 

Said  I:  "Of  course  it  hurts.  It  is  in  your  business  as 
in  my  profession.      We  have  to  hurt  before  we  can  help." 

You  will  never  understand  redemption  until  you  under- 
stand ruin.  A  man  tells  me  that  some  one  is  a  member 
of  the  church.  It  makes  no  impression  on  my  mind  at 
all.  I  simply  want*to  know  whether  he  was  converted  in 
the  old  fashioned  way,   or  whether   he  was  converted  in 


REBUILDING  THE  CITY.  39  I 

the  new  fashioned  way.  If  he  was  converted  in  the  old 
fashioned  way  he  will  stand.  If  he  was  converted  in  the 
new  fashioned  way  he  will  not  stand.  That  is  all  there 
is  about  it.  A  man  comes  to  me  to  talk  about  religion. 
The  first  question  I  ask  him  is:  "Do  you  feel  yourself 
to  be  a  sinner?"  If  he  says,  "Well  I — yes,"  the  hesitancy 
makes  me  feel  that  that  man  wants  a  ride  on  Nehemiah's 
horse  by  midnight  through  the  ruins — :in  by  the  gate  of 
his  affections,  out  by  the  gate  of  this  will;  and  before  he 
has  got  through  with  that  midnight  ride  he  will  drop  the 
reins  on  the  horse's  neck,  and  will  take  his  right  hand 
and  smite  on  his  heart  and  say:  <lGod  be  merciful  to 
me,  a  sinner;"  and  before  he  has  stabled  his  horse  he  will 
take  his  feet  out  of  the  stirrups,  and  he  will  slide  down 
on  the  ground  and  he  will  kneel,  crying,  "Have  mercy 
on  me,  O  God,  'according  to  thy  loving  kindness,  accord- 
ing unto  the  multitude  of  thy  tender  mercies;  blot  out 
my    transgressions,    and  my    sins  are    ever  before  thee." 

THE  TRUE  GOSPEL. 

"Ah,  my  friends,  you  see  this  is  not  a  complimentary 
gospel.      That  is  what  makes  some  people  so  mad. 

It  comes  to  a  man  of  a  million  dollars  and  impenitent 
in  his  sins,  and  says,   "You're  a  pauper." 

It  comes  to  a  woman  of  fairest  cheek,  who  has  never 
repented,  and  says,    "You're  a  sinner." 

It  comes  to  a  man  priding  himself  on  his  independence, 
and  says   "You're  bound  hand  and  foot  by  the  devil." 

It  comes  to  our  entire  race  and  says,  "You're  a  ruin, 
a  ghastly  ruin,  an  illimitable  ruin." 

Satan  sometimes  says  to  me,  "Why  do  you  preach 
that  truth?     Why  don't  you    preach  a  gospel  with  no  re- 


392  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

pentance  in  it,  saying  nothing  about  the  ruin,  talking  all 
the  time  about  redemption?" 

"I  say,  "Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan."  I  would  rather 
lead  five  souls  the  right  way  than  twenty  thousand  the 
wrong  way. 

The  redemption  of  the  gospel  is  a  perfect  farce  if  there 
is  no  ruin.  "The  whole  need  not  a  physician,  but  they 
are  sick."  "If  any  one,  though  he  be  an  angel  from 
heaven,  preach  any  other  gospel  than  this,"  says  the 
apostle,  "let  him  be  accursed."  There  must  be  the  mid- 
night ride  over  the  ruins  before  Jerusalem  can  be  built. 
There  must  be  the  clicking  of  the  hoofs  before  there  can 
be  the  ring  of  the  trowels. 

TRIUMPHANT  SADNESS. 

Again.  My  subject  gives  me  a  specimen  of  busy  and 
triumphant  sadness.  If  there  was  any  man  in  the  world 
who  had  a  right  to  mope  and  give  up  everything  as  lost, 
it  was  Nehemiah.  You  say:  "He  was  a  cup  bearer  in 
the  palace  of  Shushan,  and  it  was  a  grand  place."  So  it 
was.  The  hall  of  that  palace  was  two  hundred  feet 
square,  and  the  roof  hovered  over  thirty-six  marble  pil- 
lars, each  pillar  sixty  feet  high;  and  the  intense  blue  of 
the  sky,  and  the  deep  green  of  the  forest  foliage,  and  the 
white  of  the  driven  snow,  all  hung  trembling  in  the  up- 
holstery. But,  my  friends,  you  know  very  well  that  fine 
architecture  will  not  put  down  homesickness.  Yet  Nehe- 
miah did  not  give  up.  Then  when  you  see  him  going 
among  these  desolated  streets,  and  by  these  dismantled 
towers,  and  by  the  torn  up  grave  of  his  father,  you  would 
suppose  that  he  would  have  been  disheartened,  and  that 
he  would  have  dismounted  from  his  horse  and  gone  to  his 


REBUILDING  THE  CITY.  393 

room  and  said:  '  -Woe  is  me.  My  father's  grave  is  torn 
up.  The  temple  is  dishonored.  The  walls  are  broken 
down.  I  have  no  money  with  which  to  rebuild.  I  wish 
I  had  never  been  born.  I  wish  I  were  dead."  No  so 
says"  Nehemiah.  Although  he  had  a  grief  so  intense  that 
it  excited  commentary  of  his  king,  yet  that  penniless, 
expatriated  Nehemiah  rouses  himself  up  to  rebuild  the 
city.  He  gets  his  permission  of  absence.  He  gets  his 
passports.  He  hastens  away  to  Jerusalem.  By  night 
on  horseback  he  rides  through  the  ruins.  He  overcomes 
the  most  ferocious  opposition.  He  arouses  the  piety  and 
patriotism  of  the  people,  and  in  less  than  two  months, 
namely,  in  fifty-two  days,  Jerusalem  was  rebuilt.  That's 
what  I  call  busy  and  triumphant  sadness. 

THE  TEMPTATION  TO   '  'GIVE  UP." 

My  friends,  the  whole  temptation  is  with  you  when 
you  have  trouble,  to  do  just  the  opposite  to  the  behavior 
of  Nehemiah,  and  that  is  to  give  up. 

You  say,  'T  have  lost  my  child  and  can  never  smile 
again." 

You  say,  "I  have  lost  my  property,  and  I  never  can 
repair  my  fortunes." 

You  say,  "I  have  fallen  into  sin,  and  I  never  can  start 
again  for  a  new  life. " 

If  Satan  can  make  yon  form  that  resolution,  and  make 
you  keep  it,  he  has  ruined  you.  Trouble  is  not  sent  to 
crush  you,  but  to  arouse  you,  to  animate  you,  to  propel 
you.  The  blacksmith  does  not  thrust  the  iron  into  the 
forge,  and  then  blow  away  with  the  bellows,  and  then 
bring  the  hot  iron  out  on  the  anvil  and  beat  with  stroke 
after  stroke  to  ruin  the  iron,  but  to  prepare  it  for  a  better 


394  EVILS  OF  THE  CITIES. 

use.  Oh  that  the  Lord  God  of  Nehemiah  would  arouse 
up  all  broken  hearted  people  to  rebuild. 

Whipped,  betrayed,  shipwrecked,  imprisoned,  Paul 
went  right  on. 

The  Italian  martyr  Algerius  sits  in  his  dungeon  writing 
a  letter  and  he  dates  it  "From  the  delectable  orchard  of 
the  Leonine  prison-"  That  is  what  I  call  triumphant 
sadness. 

TOUCHING  STORY  OF  A    MOTHER. 

I  knew  a  mother  who  buried  her  baby  on  Friday  and 
on  Sabbath  appeared  in  the  house  of  God  and  said, 
"Give  me  a  class;  give  me  a  Sabbath  school  class.  I 
have  no  child  now  left  me,  and  I  would  like  to  have  a 
class  of  little  children.  Give  me  real  poor  children.  Give 
one  a  class  off  the  back  street"  That,  I  say,  is  beautiful. 
That  is  triumphant  sadness. 

At  three  o'clock  this  afternoon  in  a  beautiful  parlor  in 
Philadelphia — a  parlor  pictured  and  statuetted — there 
will  be  from  ten  to  twenty  destitute  children  of  the  street. 
It  has  been  so  every  Sabbath  afternoon  at  three  o'clock 
for  many  years.  These  destitute  children  receive  re- 
ligious instruction,  concluding  with  cakes  and  sand- 
witches.  How  do  I  know  that  that  has  been  going  on 
for  many  years?     I  know  in  this  way: 

That  was  the  first  home  in  Philadelphia  where  I  was 
called  to  comfort  a  great  sorrow.  They  had  a  splendid 
boy,  and  he  had  been  drowned  at  Long  Branch.  The 
father  and  mother  almost  idolized  the  boy,  and  the  sob 
and  shriek  of  that  father  and  mother  as  they  hung  over 
the  coffin  resound  in  my  ears  to-day.  There  seemed  to 
be  no  use  of  praying, -for  when  I  knelt  down  to  pray,  the 


REBUILDING  THE  CITY.  395 

outcry  in  the  room  drowned  out  all  the  prayer.  But  the 
Lord  comforted  that  sorrow.  They  did  not  forget  their 
trouble.  If  you  should  go  on  the  snowiest  winter  after- 
noon into  Laurel  Hill  you  would  find  a  monument  with 
the  word  '  'Walter"  inscribed  upon  it,  and  a  wreath  of 
fresh  flowers  around  the  name.  I  think  there  has  not 
been  an  hour  all  these  years,  winter  or  summer,  when 
Jhere  was  not  a  wreath  of  fresh  flowers  around  Walter's 
name.  But  the  Christian  mother  who  sends  those  flowers 
jhere,  having  no  child  left,  Sabbath  afternoons,  mothers 
tfen  or  twenty  of  the  lost  ones  of  the  street.  That  is 
beautiful.  That  is  what  I  call  busy  and  triumphant  sad- 
ness. 

Here  is  a  man  who  has  lost  his  property.  He  does 
not  go  to  hard  drinking.  He  does  not  destroy  his  own 
fife.  He  comes  and  says,  *  'Harness  me  for  Christian 
work.  My  money's  gone.  I  have  no  treasures  on  earth. 
I  want  treasures  in  heaven.  I  have  a  voice  and  a  heart 
co  serve  God."  You  say  that  that  man  has  failed.  He 
has  not  failed — he  has  triumphed.  Oh,  I  wish  I  could 
persuade  all  the  people  who  bave  any  kind  of  trouble 
never  to  give  up.  I  wish  they  would  look  at  the  mid- 
night rider  of  the  text,  and  that  the  four  hoofs  of  that 
beast  on  which  Nehemiah  rode  might  cut  to  pieces  all 
your  discouragements  and  hardships  and  trials.  Give 
up!  Who  is  going  to  give  up,  when  on  the  bosom  of 
God  he  can  have  all  his  troubles  hushed?  Give  up!  Never 
think  of  giving  up. 

Are  you  borne  down  with  poverty?  A  little  child  was 
found  holding  her  dead  mother's  hand  in  the  darkness  of 
a  tenement    house,  and,    some  one    coming  in,  the  little 


396  EVILS    OF  THE   CITIES. 

girl  looked  up,  while  holding  her  dead  mother's  hand,  and 
said,  "Oh,  I  do  wish  that  God  had  made  more  light  for 
poor  folks."  My  dear,  God  will  be  your  light,  God  will 
be  your  shelter,  God  will  be  your  home.  Are  you  borne 
down  with  the  bereavements  of  life?  Is  the  house  lonely 
now  that  the  child  is  gone?     Do  not  give  up. 

Think  of  what  the  old  sexton  said  when  the  minister 
asked  him  why  he  put  so  much  care  on  the  little  graves 
in  the  cemetery — so  much  more  care  than  on  the  larger 
graves,  and  the  old  sexton  said:  "Sir,  you  know  that  of 
such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven,'  and  I  think  the  Saviour 
is  pleased  when  he  sees  so  much  white  clover  growing 
around  these  little  graves."  But  when  the  minister 
pressed  the  sexton  for  a  more  satisfactory  answer,  the 
old  sexton  said,  "Sir,  about  those  larger  graves,  I  don't 
know  who  are  the  Lord's  saints  and  who  are  not;  but  you 
know,  sir,  it  is  clean  different  with  the  bairns."  Oh,  if 
you  have  had  that  keen,  tender,  indescribable  sorrow  that 
comes  from  the  loss  of  a  child,  do  not  give  up.  The  old 
sexton  was  right.  It  is  all  well  with  the  bairns.  Or,  if 
you  have  sinned,  if  you  have  sinned  grievously — sinned,  * 
until  you  have  been  cast  out  by  the  church,  sinned  until 
you  have  been  cast  out  by  society,  do  not  give  up.  Per- 
haps there  may  be  in  this  house  one  that  could  truth- 
fully utter  the  lamentation  of  another: 

Once  I  was  as  pure  as  the  snow,  but  I  fell — 
Eell  like  a  snowflake,  from  heaven  to  hell — 
Fell,  to  be   trampled  as  filth  on  the  street — 
Fell,   to  be  scoffed  at,  spit  on  and  beat; 
Praytng,  cursing,  wishing  to  die, 
Selling  my  soul  to  whoever  would  buy, 


REBUILDING  THE  CITY.  397 

Dealing  in  shame  for  a  morsel  of  bread, 
Hating  the  living  and  fearing  the  dead. 

WHERE  COMFORT  IS  FOUND. 

Do  not  give  up.  One  like  unto  the  Son  of  God  comes 
to  you  to-day,  saying,  "Go  and  sin  no  more,"  while  He 
cries  out  to  your  assailants,  "Let  him  that  is  without  sin 
cast  the  first  stone  at  her." 

Oh!  there  is  no  reason  why  anyone  in  this  house,  by 
reason  of  any  trouble  or  sin,  should  give  up. 

Are  you  a  foreigner  and  in  a  strange  land?  Nehemiah 
was  an  exile. 

Are  you  penniless?      Nehemiah  was  poor. 

Are  you  homesick?     Nehemiah  was  homesick. 

Are  you  broken  hearted?  Nehemiah  was  broken  heart- 
ed. But  just  see  him  in  the  text,  riding  along  the  sac- 
rileged  grave  of  his  father,  and  by  the  dragon  well,  and 
through  the  fish  gate,  and  by  the  king's  pool,  in  and  out 
in  and  out,  the  moonlight  falling  on  the  broken  masonry, 
which  throws  a  long  shadow  at  which  the  horse  shies, 
and  at  the  same  time  that  moonlight  kindling  up  the 
features  of  this  man  until  you  see  not  only  the  mark  of 
sad  reminiscence,  but  the  courage,  the  hope,  the  enthu- 
siasm of  a  man  who  knows  that  Jerusalem  will  be  re- 
builded.  I  pick  you  up  to-day  out  of  your  sins  and  out 
of  your  sorrow,  and  I  put  you  against  the  warm  heart  of 
Christ. 

"The  eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath  are 
the  everlasting  arms." 


THE    END. 


TEACHING  THE   DEAF  TO 
SPEAK. 


The  Teeth  the  Best  Medium  and  the  Audiphone  the 

Best   Instrument   for   Conveying   Sounds  to 

the  Deaf,  and  in  Teaching  the  Partly 

Deaf  and  Dumb  to  Speak. 


Address  Delivered  by  R.  S.  Rhodes,  of 

Chicago,  Before  the  Fourteenth  Convention 

of  American  Teachers  of  the  Deaf,  at 

Flint,  Michigan. 


Mr.  President  and  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

I  would  like  to  relate  some  of  the  causes  which  led  to 
my  presence  with  you  to-day. 

About  sixteen  years  ago  I  devised  this  instrument,  the 
audiphone,  which  greatly  assisted  me  in  hearing,  and 
discovered  that  many  who  had  not  learned  to  speak  were 
not  so  deaf  as  myself.  I  reasoned  that  an  instrument  in 
the  hands  of  one  who  had  not  learned  to  speak  would 
act  the  same  as  when  in  the  hands  of  one  who  had 
learned  to  speak,  and  that  the  mere  fact  of  one  not  being 
able  to  speak  would  in  no  wise  affect  the  action  of  the 
instrument.  To  ascertain  if  or  not  my  simple  reasoning 
was  correct,  I  borrowed  a  deaf-mute,  a  boy  about  twelve 
years  old,  and  took  him  to  my  farm.  We  arrived  there 
in  the  evening,  and  during  the  evening  I  experimented  to 

17 


1 8  THE   AUDIPHONE. 

see  if  he  could  distinguish  some  of  the  vowel  sounds.  M^ 
experiments  in  this  direction  were  quite  satisfactory. 
Early  in  the  morning  I  provided  him  with  an  audiphone 
and  took  him  by  the  hand  for  a  walk  about  the  farm. 
We  soon  came  across  a  flock  of  turkeys.  We  approached 
closely,  the  boy  with  his  audiphone  adjusted  to  his  teeth, 
and  when  the  gobbler  spoke  in  his  peculiar  voice,  the  boy 
was  convulsed  with  laughter,  and  jumping  for  joy  con- 
tinued to  follow  the  fowl  with  his  audiphone  properly 
adjusted,  and  at  every  remark  of  the  gobbler  the  boy  was 
delighted.  I  was  myself  delighted,  and  began  to  think 
my  reasoning  was  correct. 

We  next  visited  the  barn.  I  led  him  into  a  stall  beside 
a  horse  munching  his  oats,  and  to  my  delight  he  could 
hear  the  grinding  of  the  horse's  teeth  when  the  audiphone 
was  adjusted,  and  neither  of  us  could  without.  In  the 
stable  yard  was  a  cow  lowing  for  its  calf,  which  he  plainly 
showed  he  could  hear,  and  when  I  led  him  to  the  cow- 
barn  where  the  calf  was  confined,  he  could  hear  it  reply 
to  the  cow,  and  by  signs  showed  that  he  understood  their 
language,  and  that  he  knew  the  one  was  calling  for  the 
other.  We  then  visited  the  pig-sty  where  the  porkers 
poked  their  noses  near  to  us.  He  could  hear  them  with 
the  audiphone  adjusted,  and  enjoyed  their  talk,  and 
understood  that  they  wanted  more  to  eat.  I  gave  him 
some  corn  to  throw  over  to  them,  and  he  signed  that  that 
was  what  they  wanted,  and  that  now  they  were  satisfied. 
He  soon,  however,  broke  away  from  me  and  pursued  the 
gobbler  and  manifested  more  satisfaction  in  listening  to 
its  voice  than  to  mine,  and  the  vowel  sounds  as  com- 
pared to  it  were  of  slight  importance  to  him,  and  for  the 
three  days  he  was  at  my  farm  that  poor  turkey  gobbler 
had  but  little  rest. 


HEARING  THROUGH  THE  TEETH.  I  9 

With  these  and  other  experiments  I  was  satisfied  that 
he  could  hear,  and  that  there  were  many  like  him;  so  I 
i.ook  my  grip  and  audiphones  and  visited  most  of  the 
institutions  for  the  deaf  in  this  country.  In  all  institu- 
tions I  found  many  who  could  hear  well,  and  presented 
the  instrument  with  which  this  hearing  could  be  improved 
and  brought  within  the  scope  of  the  human  voice.  But 
at  one  institution  I  was  astonished;  I  found  a  bright  girl 
with  perfect  hearing  being  educated  to  the  sign  language. 
She  could  repeat  words  after  me  parrot-like,  but  had  no 
knowledge  of  their  value  in  sentences.  I  inquired  why 
she  was  in  the  institution  for  the  deaf,  and  by  examining 
the  records  we  learned  she  was  the  child  of  deaf-mute 
parents,  and  had  been  brought  up  by  them  in  the  country, 
and  although  her  hearing  was  perfect,  she  had  not  heard 
Bpoken  language  enough  to  acquire  it,  and  I  was  informed 
by  the  superintendent  of  the  institution  that  she  pre- 
ferred signs  to  speech.  I  was  astonished  that  a  child 
with  no  knowledge  of  the  value  of  speech  should  be  per- 
mitted to  elect  to  be  educated  by  signs  instead  of  speech, 
ind'  to  be  so  educated  in  a  state  institution.  This  cir- 
cumstance convinced  me  more  than  ever  that  there  was 
a  great  work  -to  be  done  in  redeeming  the  partly  deaf 
children  from  the  slavery  of  silence,  and  I  was  more 
firmly  resolved  than  ever  that  I  would  devote  the  re- 
mainder of  my  life  to  this  cause. 

I  have  had  learned  scientists  tell  me  that  I  could  not 
hear  through  my  teeth.  It  would  take  more  scientists 
than  ever  were  born  to  convince  me  that  I  did  not  hear 
Ay  sainted  mother's  and  beloved  father's  dying  voice 
with  this  instrument,  when  I  could  rTot  have  heard  it 
without. 


20  THE    AUDIPHONE. 

It  would  take  more  scientists  than  ever  were  born  to 
convince  me  that  I  did  not  hear  the  voice  of  the  Rev. 
James  B.  McClure,  one  who  has  been  dear  to  me  for  the 
last  twenty  years,  and  accompanied  me  on  most  of  my 
visits  to  institutions  spoken  of  above,  and  who  has  en- 
couraged me  in  my  labors  for  the  deaf  all  these  years,  say, 
as  I  held  his  hand  on  his  dying  bed  only  Monday  last, 
and  took  my  final  leave  from  him  (and  let  me  say,  I 
know  of  no  cause  but  this  that  would  have  induced  me 
to  leave  him  then),  "  Go  to  Flint;  do  all  the  good  you 
can.  God  bless  your  labors  for  the  deaf!  We  shall 
never  meet  again  on  earth.    Meet  me  above.    Good-by!" 

And,  Mr.  President,  when  I  am  laid  at  rest,  it  will  be 
with  gratitude  to  you  and  with  greater  resignation  for  the 
active  part  you  have  taken  in  the  interest  of  these  partly 
deaf  children  in  having  a  section  for  aural  work  admitted 
to  this  national  convention,  for  in  this  act  you  have  con- 
tributed to  placing  this  work  on  a  firm  foundation,  which 
is  sure  to  result  in  the  greatest  good  to  this  class. 

You  have  heard  our  friend,  the  inventor  of  the  tele- 
phone, say  that  in  his  experiments  for  a  device  to  im- 
prove the  hearing  of  the  deaf,  (as  he  was  not  qualified 
by  deafness,)  he  did  not  succeed,  but  invented  the  tele- 
phone instead,  which  has  lined  his  pocket  with  gold. 
From  what  I  know  of  the  gentleman,  I  believe  he  would 
willingly  part  with  all  the  gold  he  has  received  for  the 
use  of  this  wonderful  invention,  had  he  succeeded  in  his 
efforts  in  devising  an  instrument  which  would  have 
emancipated  even  twenty  per  cent,  of  the  deaf  in  the  in- 
stitutions from  the  slavery  of  silence.  I  have  often 
wished  that  he  might  have   invented  the   audiphone   and 


HEARING    THROUGH    THE    TEETH.  2  1 

received  as  much  benefit  by  its  use  as  I,  for  then  he 
would  have  used  the  gold  he  derives  from  the  telephone 
in  carrying  the  boon  to  the  deaf;  but  when  I  consider 
that  in  wishing  this  I  must  wish  him  deaf,  and  as  it  would 
not  be  right  for  me  to  wish  him  this  great  affliction,  there- 
fore since  I  am  deaf,  and  I  invented  the  audiphone,  I 
would  rather  wish  that  I  might  have  invented  the  tele- 
phone also;  in  which  case  I  assure  the  deaf  that  I  would 
have  used  my  gold  as  freely  in  their  behalf  as  would  he. 
[The  speaker  then  explained  the  use  of  the  audiometer 
in  measuring  the  degree  of  hearing  one  may  possess. 
Then,  at  his  request,  a  gentleman  from  the  audience,  a 
superintendent  of  one  of  our  large  institutions,  took  a 
position  about  five  feet  from  the  speaker,  and  was  asked 
to  speak  loud  enough  for  Mr.  Rhodes  to  hear  when  he  did 
not  have  the  audiphone  in  use,  and  by  shouting  at  the  top 
of  his  voice,  Mr.  Rhodes  was  able  to  hear  only  two  or 
three  "o"  sounds,  but  could  not  distinguish  a  word. 
With  the  audiphone  adjusted  to  his  teeth,  still  looking 
away  from  the  speaker,  he  was  able  to  understand  ordinary 
tones,  and  repeated  sentences  after  him;  and,  when  look- 
ing at  him  and  using  his  eye  and  audiphone,  the  speaker 
lowering  his  voice  nearly  as  much  as  possible  and 
yet  articulating,  Mr.  Rhodes  distinctly  heard  every 
word  and  repeated  sentences  after  him,  thus  showing  the 
value  of  the  audiphone  and  eye  combined,  although  Mr. 
Rhodes  had  never  received  instructions  in  lip  reading. 
The  gentleman  stated  that  he  had  tested  Mr.  Rhodes' 
hearing  with  the  audiometer  when  he  was  at  his  institu- 
tion in  1894,  and  found  he  possessed  seven  per  cent,  in 
his  left  ear  and  nothing  in  his  right.] 


36  THE   AUDIPHONE. 

Styles  and  Colors  of  the  Audiphone  for  Ladies, 


The  Audiphone  is  made  much  in  the  shape  of  a  fan, 
and  for  ladies  in  nearly  any  color  to  match  the  color  of 
the  costume  worn.  Ladies  may  use  it  as  they  would  a 
fan,  casually  placing  it  against  the  teeth  when  listening; 
their  infirmity  will  hardly  be  noticed  by  a  stranger.  The 
instrument  is  very  handsome;  any  lady  might  be  pleased 
to  have  so  handsome  a  fan  whether  deaf  or  not. 
.  .  .  COLORS.  .  .  . 

Colorless  Transparent 

Amber  "         " 

Blue,  Two  Shades  Transparent    - 

Green,  Two      "  " 

Purple,  "-- 

Cardinal  Red  " 

White,   "  Ivory  Finish"  Opaque 

Cream,  "  " 

Pink,  Three  Shades 

Lilac,       " 

Drab, 

Yellow,    " 

Green  (the  New  Shades),  Two  Shades  Opaque 

Blue,  Three  Shades  Opaque    - 

Cardinal  Red  " 

Tortoise  Shell  " 

Marbleized  Gray,  two  Shades  Opaque    - 
Red  "   - 

Brown  H 

Black  Opaque      ----- 


HEARING  THROUGH  THE  TEETH.  37 

Styles  and  Colors  of  the  Audiphone  for 
Gentlemen. 


Gentlemen  prefer  the — 

Colorless  Transparent  (Almost  Invisible) 

Amber  "         " 

Black  Opaque   ------ 

Tortoise    "  - 
The   favorites   with   gentlemen    being    the     colorless 
transparent  and  the  black. 


School    Style, 


We  manufacture  an  instrument  adapted  for  use    in 
schools  for  the   deaf,    and  solicit    correspondence    with 
instructors  of  the  deaf,  to  whom  all  information  in  rela- 
tion to  this  instrument  will  be  cheerfully  furnished. 
.  .   -PRICE..  .   . 

Conversational  Size  (Any  Color) $3.00 

Extra  Large,  for  very  Deaf  People  to  use 

at  Church,  Concerts,  etc 5.00 


Sent  by  mail  post-paid  to  any  address  on  receipt 
of  price. 

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